The Conquering Koopa
by Vincent M. Pierce
Summary: The Conquering Koopa is a story about a young man named Alexander who winds up in the Mushroom Kingdom and ends up in a rather unique situation. -I posted this once before but I think my account get deleted due to inactivity-
1. Chapter 1

When most people talk about having bad days at work they go on about things like how their boss was mean, how they hate their co-workers, or how horrible traffic was, and all these other woes in their trivial little lives, yet laying here on this hard stone floor none of that could have even begun to compare to what I was about to experience. You see a few minutes ago as an employee of the Sycamore Cable Company I was running a length wire under the house of one of our new customers so that she could have cable in her bedroom. Now I realize most of you think that wouldn't be very strange at all which it actually wasn't, the strange part came when I was trying to pull the cable farther under the house and not watching where I was going. I had managed to loose the cable from whatever had hooked it, but before I knew what had happened I fell through an unusually large pipe which was in itself a strange place for something like this to be. At first I thought I had tumbled into an open sewer pipe that was until I slammed into a hard stone floor with all the grace and style of a sack of potatoes.

It took a moment for me to clear my head but as I looked around I realized I had somehow ended up in a large room made of grey mortared stone and from the appearance of things it looked like I had landed in a bedroom sans occupant. The central piece that caught my attention was the pink canopy bed against the far wall with it's large golden bedposts that supported a matching silk roof over and sitting on the floor next to it was a polished oak chest with gold binding and ornate carvings on the front that had been left sitting open. Inside were a wide variety of bows and bracelets crammed rather haphazardly inside, oh great, it was a woman's room no less. Carefully making sure nothing was broken as I got to my feet I stretched for a moment, then took a better look at my surrounding, there were other items left laying about the room, apparently some kind of toys I had never seen before and a variety of colorfully painted posters on the walls with some odd looking character that looked at best like cartoonish turtle figures holding musical instruments. I was still trying to put things together in my head when I head a door open behind me followed by a rather vocal demand.

"What the hell are you doing in my bedroom?!"

I quickly spun around trying to think of something to say when I got a good look at the resident of this room and about crawled out of my skin in the process. Standing there in the doorway was a…creature, about a head smaller than me with a distinctly reptilian appearance. There was a pink ribbon with wide polka dots on her head accented by gaudy oversized gold bracelets on her wrists, red high heel shoes, and a pink, spiked shell on her back. Needless to say the expression on her face and the way her full red lips were curled back to reveal a mouth full of razor sharp teeth, told me I had about three seconds to come up with a satisfactory explanation or the following events would likely not be pleasant.

"What- I- how did- I DON'T KNOW! Where the hell am I?!" was all I managed to stammer out.

"GUARDS!" she yelled.

After calling for reinforcements she stepped into the room with the same scowl on her face and reaching under the shell behind her she took out what I could only guess was a wand of some sort.

"You're human aren't you just like the Mario Brothers? You're helpin' those stinkin' Mario Brothers aren't you! You came here to steal my stuff didn't you? Admit it, admit it!"

"Steal you're stuff, why the hell would I want to steal your stuff, I don't even know where here is!"

Before I could say anything else the creature in front of me let out a snarl and drew her arm back in which she held the wand and I saw the tip of it begin to glow. In a panic I rushed at her as fast as I could and shoving her hard enough to knock her to the floor I barreled out of the room without even so much as looking back. As I ran down the grey stone hallway of what I quickly surmised to be a castle I saw several other doors begin to open as I flew by though I didn't take the time to see what emerged. The hallway ended into a T section and without a clue as to where I was going I cut a hard left and just kept running. As I neared the end of this hallway which opened into a larger chamber another one of these creature stepped into view wearing a dark blue robe with a matching hat, glasses, and a wand of his own in hand and before I could stop myself we collided with one another and tumbled to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs.

At this point in time I was running on pure fear and adrenaline and when I turned out to be the one landing on top I drew back and punched the robed figure in the face several times until my fist was covered in blood and he had stopped moving. Hearing the sound of numerous footsteps coming up behind me I quickly grabbed the creature off the floor along with his wand and turned to face my pursuers. There were eight of them total, the one I had encountered in her room, and seven others of all sizes and shapes.

"Back off! Back off or I swear I'll kill'em!" I said.

The largest of the group, a turtle like creature with a head full of wild blue hair and a single tooth in the front of his mouth took a few steps forward.

"I doubt that, you don't even know how to use that wand I'd wager."

He was right too, I had no idea how to use this wand and I was in a real bind here, I was holding one of these things hostage with a weapon I didn't even know how to use and as soon as they figured out I really didn't know what I was doing it wouldn't take them long to make short work of me considering they all had wands of their own. On a hunch I focused my concentration on the wand and it took a few second, but soon the tip of the wand began to spark erratically and even managed to hit my hostage in the head with a little string of energy though I doubt it was enough to actually do anything, the wand musta picked up on my hostile intentions towards him. Upon seeing me actually manage to use the wand, even if poorly, the lead creature pointed a claw at me.

"Well, even if you do know how to use it, you can't take out all of us before we get you!"

"Maybe not, but I'll be sure to take you out first loud mouth." I responded by pointing the wand directly at him.

The others seemed hesitant to take an action that would endanger the life of their colleague and for a brief moment they all stood there just growling at me, then slowly they all began to smile. I couldn't understand why they were all smiling at first until I realized they weren't looking at me, they were actually looking behind me and as if on cue the moment it clicked in my head I was overtaken by a very large shadow.

"Shit…" I mumbled.

I didn't even have to turn around; all I did was look up to see who was towering over me. This was when the color actually drained out of my face, standing over top of me was a creature who looked similar to the others in front of me only he was much, MUCH larger. What I could see from my current angle consisted mostly of mane of fire red hair, a spiked leather collar, and a mouth full of razor sharp teeth.

"Let him go."

I released my grip on my hostage and let him fall to the floor without contesting him and even let him take the wand out of my hand without a fight as he could have easily killed me from where he stood and I knew with this new turn of events the only thing that would save me would be some pretty fast talking. Not even paying attention to the other eight anymore I turned now to face who I could only assume was the lord of this castle and a shiver went down my spine as I got a good look at him. He was easily eight feet tall with light brown scales and his body was heavily muscled and supporting a spiked shell that was frankly… bigger than I was. I don't know if the spiked leather bands around his biceps and wrists served any actual purpose or if they were just meant to intimidate people, but either way they were working wonders on me. I took a few steps back and swallowed hard deciding that now was as good a time as any to lay it all out as big boy hadn't actually said anything else, at the moment he was just glaring at me.

"Look I-I really don't want any trouble honest. I don't even know how I got here in fact I don't even know where here is. I was just minding my own business trying to lay some cable wire when I fell down this pipe and-"

"Be quiet."

My mouth snapped shut without another word and I stood there looking at this thing that looked like a cross between a turtle and a dragon and just waited for something… anything to happen. Even though he had not so much as raised his voice either times he had spoken, there was a menace in his tone that told me all it would take was one flip word or misunderstood tone and I was done.

"You're from Earth aren't you?"

"Yes."

"And your arrival here was an accident?"

"Yes."

"Then why were you holding this magi-koopa hostage?"

There were several things that ran through my mind at that moment, a number of bluffs or lies I could have rattled off in my own defense, but after a good look into this creatures eyes I knew the best course of action was the truth.

"When I landed in the room of… of… is that your daughter?" I nodded in her direction.

"Yes, Wendy is my daughter."

"When I landed in your daughter's room I was trying to figure out where I was, how'd I gotten there and so on when she walked in. When I saw her, having never seen a… her, like that before I panicked and ran. I ended up running into that magi-uh guy, beat the crap out of him, took his wand, held him hostage and you pretty much know the rest."

"Why?"

"I was scared."

"Are you still scared?"

"Extremely."

"Smart answer."

By this time the other eight whom I assumed were all his children had gathered around behind me in a semi-circle and were all giving me looks that were making me quite uncomfortable.

"What should we do with him dad?" said the blue haired one.

"I'll decide what to do with him later, for now I have other more pressing matters to attend to. Ludwig, escort our friend here to the guest quarters and if he tries anything funny… kill'em."


	2. Chapter 2

The guest quarters as it turned out was the dungeon where I had spent the last two weeks doing nothing but sitting and thinking. Well not quite just sitting and thinking, fortunately the morning shift jailor Rupert, turned out to be a fairly nice Koopa to those who didn't act the part of a fool. It was from him that I learned big boy was actually King Bowser Koopa, ruler of the Koopa Kingdom and the eight others I had encountered were in fact all his children, often referred to collectively as the Koopalings. As it turned out humans were so unpopular around the castle because of the actions of two humans known as the Mario Brothers.

For years they had stood in Bowser's way stopping him from conquering the Mushroom Kingdom and had even thwarted his plans to force Princess Peach to marry him so he could declare himself king and take the Mushroom Kingdom by marriage, seems I had made my entrance into the kingdom in the wrong place.

"Here you go Alex." Rupert said.

I had been so engrossed in my thoughts I hadn't even noticed him walk up with my breakfast tray. Unlike a lot of the other prisoners he actually approached the bars to hand me my tray through the slot. Sure I'd considered beating the crap out of him and taking the keys, probably could've too but the truth of the matter was I was afraid of running into Bowser again if I tried to escape, that was one Koopa I did **NOT** want to tangle with. Breakfast this morning consisted of a bottle of water, an orange, and some sort of soup that I couldn't even identify. Rupert was a slightly portly Koopa Turtle with a faded green shell and relaxed expression on his face.

"I've been down here for what, two weeks now, they just gonna let me rot down here?" I said, as I peeled the orange.

"I doubt it, if there's one thing King Koopa is known for, it's not forgetting anything. Believe me he hasn't forgotten about you."

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not eager to see him again, it's just the sitting and waiting is maddening."

"Tell me about it, I've been morning shift guard for thirteen years, all I do is sit and wait. So you got any family back home?" he asked, taking a seat by his desk.

"Nope, my parents both died when I was a baby and I grew up in an orphanage that just kicked me to the curb when I turned eighteen."

"That's rough, got a girl or anything?"

"Nope, just me, myself, and I against the world, or Mushroom Kingdom I guess, how about you?"

"Been married for eight years, got three kids and a hefty mortgage, I'm just thankful most of the people down here are too scared to try to escape, keeps my job nice and quiet."

Just as I was finishing my orange the castle was rocked by a loud explosion that caused the ground to shake violently and dislodged the dust in the dungeon in large clouds causing both Rupert and myself to cough loudly.

"What the hell was that?"

"Either Ludwig is working in his chemistry lab again or the castle is under attack."

It was the muffled sound of cries followed by shouts that lead me to believe the castle was being attack, well that and two more explosions that rocked the dungeon so violently that the ceiling began to collapse.

"Ruuuupert, get me the hell out of here!" I exclaimed, looking at the ceiling.

Within a matter of seconds Rupert had unlocked all the doors and the prisons were busy making their escape just as the ceiling of the cells began to collapse with a loud rumble and we wasted no time beating a hasty retreat up the stairs. Still not knowing where I was or where to go I decided to just stick with Rupert who was dashing through the halls of the castle. As we went I noticed that we were running in the same direction as several large groups of armed Koopas who I could only guess were filtering out of the castle to meet their attackers and sure enough within a few minutes we dashed out into the courtyard.

There was a massive hole in the castle's eastern defensive wall and it though this hole that a large number of seemingly identically clothed figured were invading the castle. I couldn't tell what they looked like as they were all wearing long robes with the hoods pulled up and a wide variety of weapons in hand and were barely half my height, but the castle guards were giving them hell and fighting them every inch of the way. Turtles, Sniff-its, Shy Guys, Ninjas, Hammer Brothers, all the different Koopa species I had learned about during my time in the dungeon were fighting the invaders and actually holding their ground.

"Stinits!" Rupert declared.

"What?"

"Stinits, they're invaders from another dimension, they've been trying to get a foothold in the Mushroom Kingdom for some time now."

Just as the battle was reaching its peak I saw a large shadow appear over the courtyard and looking up I saw Bowser dropping down through the air and when he landed in the courtyard he hit with enough force to cause what I could only compare to a small earthquake that knocked almost everyone off their feet including Rupert and I. With a roar that drowned out the sound of battle Bowser cut loose with a jet of flame that caught almost two dozen Stinits in its wake and reduced them to little more than ashes that wafted away on the breeze.

"JESUS! He can breath fire too?!"

"That and more, he's just getting warmed up."

Keeping a close eye on the Stinits in case one of them turned to attack us I watched as Boswer began making odd motions with his hands and within a few second they were engulfed in energy that he hurled towards two groups of Stinits causing a series deafening explosions.

"He's also an extremely powerful sorcerer."

"And these Mario Brothers keep defeating him how?"

"That's not something I would bring up around him."

The other thing that caught my attention was the fact that all of his kids, even Bowser Jr were fighting the invaders. Ludwig was firing some sort of beam gun that was turning the Stinits to bricks, Lemmy was kicking the rubber ball he balanced on the and then managing to land on it again with amazing accuracy, all the while blasting them with his wand. Roy's strategy wasn't overly complicated, he was big, mean, and was stomping the crap out the Stinits using his wand as a club more often than not. Personally I think the most interesting of the kids in terms of battle tactics was Iggy who was using what appeared to be a robot with him sitting atop the machine that was nearly as big as his father and operating the controls. Wendy was busy using her wand at range to keep the attackers away from her while Morton and Larry stuck close to one another and pummeled any Stinit that got within arms length, even Bowser Jr was tripping the invaders and stomping on them.

As the battle raged on and the bodies began to pile up the courtyard I noticed the Stinits numbers weren't thinning, but the ranks of the Koopas were and that's when something finally occurred to me. Making my way across the courtyard by means of mostly punting and robed figure that got too close to me I was trying to make my way towards the hole in the castle wall when I heard a scream off to my left. It was Wendy, she was being attacked by at least a half dozen Stinits who had managed to get close enough to her to literally pile on top of her and one of them had just pulled her wand out of her hand. The only weapon I could find close by was the hammer from a fallen Hammer Brother which I scooped up as I ran towards her and when I had closed the range between us I took a golf swing with the hammer and hit one of the Stinits hard enough to actually launch him over the side of the castle wall.

The fact that these things were barely half my height and apparently of small stature under their robes mde them fairly easy to get rid of, and after a few swings of my hammer, Wendy was pushing the rest of her attackers off. Picking her wand up off the ground I held it out to her.

"Princess, are you alright?" I asked.

"Yeah I'm fine, uh thanks." She said, as she took her wand back with a puzzled look on her face.

From this vantage point I was able to see through the hole in the wall into the field beyond and my suspicions were confirmed, the Stinits were making up for strength with sheer number, there were thousands of them outside the wall and they were continuing to flood into the courtyard like an ocean tide.

"Wendy, can your father's magic fix the wall?"

"I think so, uh, I don't know."

"Bowser! Bowser!"

Even though I was yelling at the top of my lungs, Bowser seemed to be so engrossed in the fighting that he didn't hear me.

"Bowser!" I yelled again.

"HEY YOU BIG GREEN SCALE BRAIN!" Wendy yelled.

That appeared to catch his attention as he looked over to where we were standing and I pointed to the wall.

"Repair the wall! There are thousands of them out there, repair the wall!"

Belching a sheet of fire to clear his path and walking over to the wall like someone walking down the street Bowser surveyed the situation for a moment and this time he didn't even make any hand motions, he just placed his hand on the side of the wall and it just seemingly grew back together. Afterwards he took a wand from under the back of his shell and shot three flares into the sky, red, green, and blue.

"What the hell?"

"He's signaling the Koopa Air Guard."

Exactly where they came from or how they managed to respond so fast I don't know, but in just under half a minute there were dozens of airships flying over the top of Castle Koopa and when they had cleared the courtyard they began to mercilessly carpet bomb the field the Stinits were in. I made a quick dash for the wall to see what was happening and in the field below the seemingly endless assault launched by the invaders had broken apart. The bombs the ships were using were so powerful they were leaving craters in the ground as they exploded and the Stinit army was getting torn to pieces.

In an effort to retreat one of the Stinits near the back of the field began waving a wand and a portal was slowly materializing, but before it was complete Wendy who had apparently followed me to the top of the wall began to mutter something.

"Ukta-ryl narg-tresto." and extended her wand in the direction of the portal.

Within a few seconds the portal destabilized and dissipated as the Stinit wizard looked around desperately for a moment before one of the airships dropped a bomb almost directly on top of him.

"Uh, what was that all about?"

"I disrupted their escape portal, if those little bastards are going to invade our kingdom they have two choices, win or die."

"How do you suppose they breached the wall, I don't see any siege weapons."

"Probably the wizard that just bite the dust, I've been telling dad he needs to reinforce the castle walls against magical attacks."

As the battle was winding down I made my way back down to the castle's courtyard only to come face to face with King Koopa who was, yet again, glaring at me. I again found myself swallowing hard at I looked up at him, but instead of babbling on like last time I just waited for him to say something.

"Tell me something little human, why, after keeping you in the dungeon for almost two weeks, did you help Wendy? Why not just make good your escape and be gone?"

When he phrased things like that it really did make me question why I had helped her, after all she was the very reason for me being in the dungeon. It took me a minute and several screwed up faces later before I was finally able to give him an answer.

"I don't know really, I guess it was a combination of sticking with something I at least slightly know as compared to what I don't. Well that along with the fact I saw her in trouble and reacted more than anything else I suppose."

"In return for saving Wendy's life you may leave the castle once the battlefield is clear."

My mind was wanting to remark on the fact I had no idea where to go or what to do, but I decided it best to just let him go as he turned to leave and resigned myself to asking someone else for directions. As I was about to leave Wendy ran up to her father and began tugging on his arm, though I didn't understand what they were saying she obviously got what she wanted and he just grunted and waved his hand and she in turned starting jumping up and down and clapping her hands. With a broad smile on her face she walked back over to me.

"Dad said you could stay."

"You asked your father to let me stay, why? I thought humans were that popular around here."

"Well it's not so much humans in general as it is two in particular, then there's the fact you saved my life and well," looking down at the ground she started to twist the tip of one of her shoes on the stone block work slightly, "you're the first person who's ever called me princess."

With that she turned and walked after her father with a new spring in her step.

"Oh boy." I said to myself.


	3. Chapter 3

Most people use the phrase 'From bad to worse' but in my case it was 'From bad to strange." First I had ended up in some strange fantasy land with a race of creatures known as the Koopas who were ruled by an extremely nasty character known as King Koopa, then to top it off his castle is invaded by this creatures called Stinits during which I save his daughter Wendy more as a reaction than an intentional plan and she talks her father into letting me stay. Standing there in front of the mirror I just looked at myself in my one piece Sycamore Cable Company Uniform, which has since been washed, and my old worn black leather boots. With a small sigh I ran my hand though my short white hair, and for those of you out there wondering I'm only twenty three, my hair is the result of a birth defect, I was born without a gene for hair color.

"Alex you idiot, what have you gotten yourself into now?"

At this point in time going home wasn't an option; I had asked Wendy's brother Ludwig about it since after saving his sister he was now only mildly hostile towards me instead of outright aggressive, and he told me that when the Stinits had invaded they had sealed off all entrances and exits to the Mushroom Kingdom save for the portal magic their wizards used. Turns out the little foray in the courtyard was just Stinit's way of sizing up the competition, so for the time being I was stuck here, in the middle of a war no less. The Stinits themselves were a rather odd looking bunch once you got their robes off. Their bodies were thin in appearance, almost gaunt, with pale white skin, tiny eyes, and an oversized head with a wide mouth that sported two rows of tiny but hellishly sharp teeth, a fact evidenced by many of the surviving Koopa Troops nursing nasty bite wounds.

They also appeared to be built for speed because once they had breeched the wall they poured into the courtyard with incredible agility. I think one of the biggest things they hadn't counted on in their initial attack was Bowser, once he appeared on scene and began turning large numbers of the Stinits to char chrispies before repairing the wall they realized they weren't dealing with a simple pushover. This resulted in a two fold effect, one being that they will likely not attack again for a while giving my hosts time to prepare their defenses, and two, when they do return they'll likely be ready for him the next time. There came a knock at the door that interrupted my thoughts and snapping back to reality I answered.

"Come in."

The door opened and Wendy walked in dressed the same as ever with her polka dotted bow, oversized hoop bracelets, and red high heels.

"So how you liking your new room?"

"I've had worse, what can I do for you?"

"I just dropped by to bring you-" she looked behind her briefly then stepped out into the hall, "MOVE IT YOU BUM!"

Then re-entered the room and stepped aside to allow the Koopa Turtle to lug a rather large cardboard box into the room before collapsing onto the floor and gasping for air. This definitely caught my attention as I inspected the plain brown rectangular container which was actually slightly bigger than the Koopa who had brought it in, Wendy was bringing me something? Word around the castle was that her vanity was outstripped only by her greed and getting her to give someone something was tantamount to pulling teeth.

"A gift, for me?"

"Actually it's not from me, it's from dad."

"It's from Bowser?! This isn't going to explode when I open it is it?"

"What? Oh no of course not." She giggled.

Rather hesitantly I opened still not entirely sure something wouldn't jump out at me, but when I looked inside the contents reeeally peaked my curiosity.

"A Koopa shell?"

"What do you think, do you like it?"

"Uh, I don't know, I've never owned a Koopa shell before."

"Well go on, try it on."

With little effort I removed the shell from the box despite the obvious difficulty the courier had in bringing it and placed it on the bed next to the mirror. The accommodations I had been given were actually better than what I thought I would receive under the circumstances. The room I was staying in was about the size of an efficiency apartment with a plain iron framed bed against the far wall, and a gold trimmed, swiveling, floor length mirror. An old three drawer oaken dresser had been placed next to the door and a black metal nightstand had been placed on in the corner on the other side of the bed. When I had mentioned there was no window in the room Roy was even nice enough to accommodate me by using his wand to blow a hole in the wall. The shell itself as I inspected it on the bed was of a somewhat longer design than the standard round shells I had seen on most of the Koopa Troops, and the most interesting thing I noticed aside from the polished black back with it's hexagonal design was that like the shells Bowser and his kids wore, it had spikes.

"This shell is spiked, isn't this a little fancy for an annoying house guest?"

"Oh posh, just try it on, go on now."

Sliding my boots of I unzipped the front of my work uniform and let it drop to the floor before kicking it to the side and then as I stood there in my boxers I was about to reach for the shell when I noticed in the reflection of the mirror that Wendy was leaning against the frame of the door and giving me a rather detailed visual inspection. From the expression on her face I apparently didn't disappoint. It wasn't that hard for me to get the shell over my head, but this was a new sensation for me to say the least and when I finally managed to get my head and limbs in all the proper places I was again inspecting myself in the mirror. The shell fit almost perfectly to my surprise, although I still didn't think it looked right, a human in a Koopa Shell?

"So what do you think?" Wendy asked.

"It looks okay; I suppose it'll take some getting used to. Now that I've tried it on how about you answer the question you avoided earlier, why would big bad Bowser give something like this to an annoying house guest?"

"Well…"

I could tell by the expression on her face that she was about to tell me something I was likely not going to want to hear.

"Well you see it all started last night when my dad was talking with his advisors about the Mario Brothers and how they were always helping the Mushroom Kingdom and…" she trailed off without finishing her sentence.

"Out with it." I insisted

"You've been drafted by King Dad."

"I've been WHAT?!?!" I exclaimed, almost jumping out of the new shell I had been given, "No, no way, no how, not gonna happen!"

"So you're telling dad no huh? Sure I'll let you go tell him that," after a long moment of silence and the both of us looking at each other she nodded her head, "That's what I thought."

"Come on Wendy, how the hell am I gonna help fight off an entire army, that bit with you in the courtyard was a fluke, I'm not a fighter, I'm a cable installer for crying out loud."

"He doesn't expect you to fight off the Stinits."

"If I'm not supposed to fight the Stinits who am I suppose to fight?"

"The Mario Brothers."

"Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me, he wants me to take out two guys he can't even defeat?"

"No, he just wants you to keep them busy while he fights off the Stinits. See with the Stinits invading dad knows that if the Mario Brothers get wind of this they might just use this opportunity to their advantage and try to take him out permanently. All he wants you to do is go over to the Mushroom Kingdom and raise a little hell long enough to keep them out of his hair."

"And exactly how am I supposed to do that, I don't have any troops or weapons."

"No, you've got something even better." With that she reaches into the back of her shell and produces a small flower with a red, orange, and white colors that looked almost like it had eyes in the middle of it.

"What the hell is that?"

"It's called a fire flower, here, eat it."

"Eat it?"

"That's right, eat it."

Still trying to wrap my mind around this whole situation I reached out and took the flower from Wendy and after inspecting it again I just shrugged and ate it. The flower itself about made me retch at the taste, still coughing a few moments later I stopped when I noticed something strange happening, my body felt as though someone had just lit a fire in me yet there was no pain or discomfort, it was a strange feeling, then as I looked over at Wendy she just smiled and pointed to the mirror. It didn't even take a split second for me to notice the fact that my normally snow white hair had become a bright blazing red almost the same color as Bowser's.

"What in the name of god?"

"Feeling pretty fired up right about now aren't you hot stuff?"

"Uh yeah, what's going on?"

"That's what fire flowers do, try taking all that heat you've got going on inside you and focus it into your hand."

As Wendy had instructed I held my hand out in front of me and tried focusing this internal heat into my hand and with almost not effort at all a ball of fire formed a few inches above my hand and just flickered there.

"Oh man, this is just freakin' wicked." I grinned.

"Now you see why dad wants to use you to cause havoc?"

It was that thought that actually brought about my next question. I closed my hand and extinguished the fireball before turning to look at Wendy.

"No actually I don't, why all the fuss over me, why not just send a Koopa Trooper to do all this?"

"Because, Fire flowers don't work on Koopa Troops, they only work on Toads and humans, kinda like how Koopas are the only ones who can use Koopa Magic."

"Yeah but that still doesn't answer my question, why me?"

"Well dad said part of it was psychological too, since the Mushroom Kingdom had been protected by those damn plumbers for so long that having a human on the Koopa payroll would send them a real message."

"There's something else you haven't accounted for."

"Like what?"

"Like maybe I don't want to be an agent of terror for your father?"

"Do you realize what my dad is offering you?"

"No, what is your father offering me?"

"Look at the shell on your back Alex, take a real good look. That's a spiked shell you're wearing not every run of the mill Koopa can wear one of those you know. Only the royal family and those who are really honored are given that privilege. You were telling me the other day how some of the troops were giving you grief and cracking jokes at you? Walk by them wearing that and see what kind of jokes they make."

For a long time I stood there looking at myself in the mirror, looking at the shell I was wearing and thing about what it truly meant and the more I thought about it the more I realized Wendy was right. Of all the Koopas I had seen in the castle Bowser and his kids were the only ones who had a spiked shell, the only ones to command that type of authority. As I stood there Wendy walked up next to me and smiled.

"Besides, I saw the look in your eyes when you formed that fireball, the feeling of power it gave you; you liked that feeling didn't you? Think about it Alex, dad's offering you a great honor, an honor most Koopas will never see in their entire lifetimes. He's giving you the chance to make something out of yourself, to be something more than a what, Cable Installer? So you gotta fry a few mushrooms, who cares?! You'll be one of the most feared Koopa in all of Mushroom World, under dad of course."

Up until now something of this magnitude had never crossed my mind, nothing like this had ever presented itself and as much as I wanted to deny it, something in what Wendy had said struck a cord deep down inside of me, a cord that had felt good. If what she said was true Bowser was offering me a position of incredible power, a position that would give me power over others in return for terrorizing the Mushroom Kingdom and keeping some annoying plumbers out of his hair. There was a part of me that knew something like this was wrong, that terrorizing people whatever the reason isn't something anyone should ever do and then there was the part of me that didn't care. There was that part of me that saw the power and the prestige and wanted it, and right now that part of me was winning.

Once more I opened the palm of my hand and let a fireball form in the middle of it and as I did a let a rather nasty grin creep across my face.

"Let's fry some mushrooms."

"That's the spirit, not only will you be feared, but being dad's personal instrument of terror comes with a pretty hefty paycheck and some other nice fringe benefits."

"Such as?"

Without giving me an immediate answer she slowly sauntered to the door and looked back before leaving.

"You'll find out."


	4. Chapter 4

The mission which Bowser had given me wasn't set to start until tomorrow so with some free time on my hands I decided to not only wander around the castle, but also show off the new spiked shell I had and just as Wendy had said a lot of the Koopa Troops looked at me with shocked expressions of their faces, but no one said anything to me, not a damn thing. This little jewel really did have perks to it and I loved every minute of it. It should be noted there are a few other creatures in the Koopa Kingdom that have spiked shells such as a Spiney, but their shell is used as a weapon rather than a status symbol.

The most interesting thing I notice about Bowser's castle was the means by which he powers it, where as most people would think it was simple electrical generator it isn't. The lava that flows through his castle isn't just for dramatic effect, even though in that respect it works quite well, but its other use is in fact geothermal power that he harnesses to power the massive generators that keep the castle running and from what I've seen the lava flow doesn't appear to be thinning out at all. If I remember what Iggy told me correctly Bowser actually used Koopa Magic to redirect the normal magma flows that exist deep within Mushroom World and pulled them up to the surface, at least around his castle, along with the help of some massive drilling equipment. As I walked down one of the halls in the castle I heard the sounds of several of the Koopa troops laughing and realized I had wandered into the barracks area without paying much attention to where I was actually going and thought about something Wendy had told me earlier that day, so long as I didn't kill the Koopa Troops my spiked shell would allow me to get away with just about anything.

'Just about anything…' I thought to myself.

Literally kicking the door open I stormed into the barracks causing all the troops to suddenly stop what they were doing and look in my direction, then when they saw the shell they immediately looked away nervously. It only took me a moment to spot my query and once I had singled him out I point directly at him.

"YOU!" I bellowed.

When the others saw that I had zeroed in on one of them in particular they immediately took several steps away from him leaving only a small distance between us. This was the Koopa Troop who had been cracking jokes at me the other day and I could still recall several of the nasty remarks he had made about me. In a quick motion I slid forward with my hand held out behind me as a formed a fireball and then swinging my arm forward in a wide arc I brought the fireball to bear hurling it straight at him. It connected with him square in the chest with a loud 'FOMP' and in a conflagration of fire he was hurled back with enough force to slam him into the far wall. I had kept the fireball weak enough to avoid killing him, but had put enough muscle behind the throw to let him know I meant business. With the others cowering away from me and the Koopa Turtle laying on the floor if front of me shielding himself with his arms I held me own arms out.

"Come on wise guy, where are your jokes now? What's the matter isn't Mr. Pink Skin funny anymore? ISN'T HE?!"

I waited for a minute to let things sink in the pointed to all the troops with a wide sweeping motion of my arm.

"Take a good look at the shell, take a real good look came from Bowser himself. That's right there's a new chief in town and all you little indians better remember that because the next one of you I hear making a snide remark or stupid little joke gets worse!"

After that little display I left them to think on the matter and I walked out of the room with a smirk on my face… God that felt good. The more I thought about the upcoming mission the more I actually looked forward to it just like I had shown the Koopa Troops I was going to show the Mushroom Kingdom that they now had someone else to fear and someone else to worry about. It was true what they said about power, it's addictive.

The other decision I had come to was that during my mission I wasn't just going to walk into town and cause a ton of trouble then wait for the Mario Brothers to show up. If they'd been beating the pants off Bowser all these years the last thing I wanted to do was face someone I knew nothing about on their home turf, that's just asking to get a foot broken off in your ass. The best way to approach this would be to use guerilla tactics, to hit and run, cause some chaos and then disappear before the heavy hitters showed up, if I did this right I could keep these Mario losers running around in so many circles they wouldn't even know what a Stinit was.

In order to facilitate the next phase of my intelligence operation I decided to pay a visit to Ludwig Von Koopa the supposed brains of the Koopalings to see if he had some maps of the Mushroom Kingdom I could use. Sure I could've stopped by the library but that was clear across the castle where as Ludwig's room was just a few halls over. With just a few twists and turns I arrived at a heavy wooden door surrounded by a steel frame that was covered mostly by a rather large white poser with the words 'Piss off' in bright red letters… how charming. It only took two knocks to get a rather annoyed response.

"What?!" came the response.

"It's Alex, mind if I come in for a minute?"

"Yeah whatever."

Pushing the door open carefully I slid my head inside first and looked around and his room definitely lent one to the belief that Ludwig pursued projects requiring considerable intelligence. The wall directly in front of me was covered in shelves of all shaped and sizes with a wide variety of bottles that contained liquids of just about any color one could imagine. The walls to either side of me were covered by floor to ceiling book selves that were crammed full of books containing everything from advanced calculus and geometry to the latest edition of Koopa's Bloopers and Practical Jokes. In the left corner of the room against the wall with the door in it was a plain steel framed bed and in the floor next to that was a television and game system with several cartridges scattered around it. In the center of the room there were three long wooden tables with a wide variety of equipment on them for various scientific studies and Ludwig himself was currently sitting with his back turned to me hunched over something.

"Well you gonna come in or just stand there gawking like an idiot?"

Stepping into the room I closed the door behind me and walked over to where he was working and saw that he was looking into a microscope and taking notes on something.

"So what are you working on?"

"None of your damn business, now did you drop by for an actual reason or just to waste my time?"

"There is a reason, are you aware of the job you father wishes me to undertake?"

"Yeah, go over to Princess Bitch's kingdom and blow shit up or something like that." He said never even bothering to look up.

"Well I wouldn't have put it quite so eloquently… but yes. The reason I stopped by was to see if you had some maps I could look over. If I'm going to wreck havoc and terror over this kingdom it would be best if I knew where I was going."

At this Ludwig actually looked up from his work and stared at me for a moment and I wasn't sure if he was going to answer me or attack me.

"So what you're not just going to charge in guns blazing and destroy everything in sight?"

"As I'm new to the Mushroom Kingdom and these Mario Brothers are not, tactics like that would be, well, stupid."

"Well I'll be damned; looks like King Dad might have finally hired someone with some working brain cells, here follow me."

It was in that comment I found out how to appeal to Ludwig in the future if I needed to, even if I wasn't as smart as him, at least appearing to be intelligent would likely garner a better result. This Koopaling respected intelligence, or at least didn't despise it. He removed a rolled up length of paper from one of the shelves and walked over to the end of one of the tables where his spread it out then folded his arms as he looked over at me.

"Alright hotshot, what's your plan?"

With my first good look at the kingdom I was now in I took my time looking at the map and memorized several locations before I finally laid out the plan I had in mind.

"I figure the best thing to do rather than a straight forward offensive is to use guerilla tactics, hit and run. I don't know enough about the Mario Brothers to try to take them on, especially in their own territory so I figure I'll hit several targets in quick succession, stay on the move and make it hard to find me."

"That's actually a pretty sound strategy, you might last more than a month after all."

"Yes but the question is where to hit, I'm not familiar with the lay of the land, any suggestions?"

"Yeah, here, here, here, here, and here." he pointed to several places on the map, "The first three locations are areas with heavy population densities, the fourth is one of the kingdom's main transport hubs, and the last is their largest port town. You hit those and they'll sit up and take notice real quick. You better stay on the move though, because the last thing you want are the brothers catching up with you."

"Indeed, it's not likely I would succeed against them in an all out confrontation."

"Succeed? You try to take them on they'll be shipping your happy ass home in a matchbox."

"May I take this map with me?"

"Sure, and good luck cause you're gonna need it sucker."

Ludwig's advice, and the repeated descriptions of the battle prowess of the Mario Brothers was actually starting to make me wonder, how could two plumbers from Brooklyn cause Bowser so much trouble, were they really that powerful or that skilled? Well with my upcoming mission I would find out first hand if I wasn't careful, and the last thing I wanted to do was report back in a matchbox. With that I decided to head back to my room and turn in for the night with this upcoming mission tomorrow I wanted to make sure I got as much sleep as I could, the last thing you want is to be worn out on a dangerous mission. Again the journey to my room was short as I was actually housed close to the barracks where I had paid my joking friend a little visit earlier and when I opened the door to my room I tossed the map on the dresser next to me before stretching and removing my shell.

The shell had been a gift from Bowser and my ticket to power and prestige to I was very careful to lay it gently on the dresser next to the map making sure to take good care of it. Deep down inside I was still torn over this decision I had made knowing that tomorrow I was likely going to end up killing some of the citizens of the Mushroom Kingdom, but I had already committed to the road ahead of me and there was no turning back, besides as I said earlier I wanted the power and prestige. My bed despite its plain appearance was actually quite comfortable and so without further ado I kicked off my pants, slid under the covers and cut out the light on the nightstand looking forward to a good night's sleep, and that was that… or so I thought.

I was already well sleep when I was roused from said sleep by a pair of fingers that were walking themselves up my arm. It took my brain a moment to register what was actually going on, and then I realized I wasn't the only one in my bed anymore. Already lying on my side facing the lamp I reached up very slowly and pulled the draw string that turned it on and looked over my shoulder.

"Wendy? What the f… what are you doing here?"

"Oh, I just thought I'd drop by and fill you in on some of those fringe benefits I mentioned earlier."

"Fringe… what the hell are you talking-" then it clicked in my head what she meant once my eyes had adjusted to the light and I could see she wasn't wearing her shell.

"Oh my…"

"Oh my indeed." She smiled, as she reached up and turned my light out again.


	5. Chapter 5

It's interesting now fast one's life can change if you really think about it, I mean just sit down for five minutes and think about your life just a month earlier and you'll probably see some vast changes compared to how things are today. Just over two weeks ago I was a cable installer for Sycamore Cable and now I'm an instrument of terror for Bowser King of the Koopa Kingdom, instrument of terror for tyrant king of another dimension, wonder how well that'd go over on a job resume.

After a short yawn I pulled the blankets back and tossed my feet over the side of the bed only to have a small pain shoot through my shoulder as I sat up. It took me a moment to recall last night, then I remembered the pain was the result of a bite mark Wendy had left, damn that girl was aggressive I'm just glad my clothing was able to cover up the marks she had left while filling me in on some of those 'fringe benefits' she had mentioned. I dressed myself quickly as I was due to leave on my mission of distraction soon and the last thing I wanted to do was be late and make a bad impression on my first mission.

With map in hand I headed out of my room and I was about to make my way to the pipe room the castle used for transport when I was stopped by a Koopa Turtle in the hallway.

"For you sir." He held out a small green box with a matching ribbon tied around it.

Yet again I was presented with another mysterious gift, I waited for the courier to leave before pulling the ribbon loose and opening the box. Inside there was a small golden pendant inside with a carefully crafted pendant attached to it bearing the symbol of a Koopa claw on the front with a piece of paper folded next to it. The note read:

'If you get in over your head just grab the pendant and focus on it' –Wendy

Although I appreciated the gift, in a way this just compounded the situation even further. First I had landed in this strange place, then been drafted as an agent of terror and forced to use guerilla tactics, and now to top it off I had a koopa princess who apparently had a crush on me. For the moment I just slipped the little trinket around my neck and continued on my way. The only thing left was to see if the request I had sent to Bowser had been honored, or for that matter even considered. As I approached the pipe room in the castle I saw a Hammer Brother standing by the door with a package in hand and as soon as he saw me round the corner he snapped to attention with a salute and held the package out to me. I saluted in return then waved him off as I checked the contents and sure enough there were five fire flowers inside, enough to see me through the mission. I had found out early on that surprisingly enough the shell I was wearing made a rather handy storage compartment and not only that, it darn near impossible to knock something loose.

Once my supply of ammunition was secured I looked at the large wooden door in front of me and gathered my courage regarding pipes and opened the door. What I saw next was an odd sight indeed, as the door swung open I was presented with a room that had pipes coming out of every wall possible, floor, ceiling, all four adjacent walls, everywhere and every last one of them was green, nearly knee height and twice as wide. At first I had no idea which one to would lead me to where I needed to go, then upon closer inspection I noticed that they had been labeled with the destinations stamped into the metal in the side of the pipe. It only took a minute for me to find the location I was after but rather than jump immediately into it I stopped and looked down into its pitch dark interior.

My first experience with these pipes was anything but pleasant and had landed me into some pretty hot water, to say I wasn't that eager to go through this experience again was an understatement yet according to everyone I'd talked to around the castle it was one of the fastest ways to travel. It would be rather silly for Bowser's newest weapon against the Mushroom kingdom developed a pipe-phobia so without waiting to think about it any longer I stepped up onto the side of the pipe and dove in.

Much to my surprise rather than a volatile crash landing such as when I first arrived my exit was smooth and I slid up through the exit pipe quickly planting my feet on the sides trying to maintain my balance as the pipe sunk back into the ground. Though I had landed in a field that looked to be nothing but a grassy plane in every direction as far as the eye could see I was lucky enough to stop my target some distance to the north. Upon closer inspection, via squinting my eyes, I could just make out the roofs of buildings and what looked to be a quaint little village just waiting for my arrival, an arrival that I was already walking to fulfill.

'Are you sure you want to do this? Are you sure you want to attack innocent people who've done nothing to you? Look at them, they're just trying to do their jobs and live their lives, what have they done to deserve this? You have a choice, turn around and leave now.'

'Turn around and leave, are you out of your mind?! Look at them, they're sitting ducks, all the power and prestige you've been wanting these past few days, there it is. Go, crush, kill, and destroy!'

No matter how much I told myself I wanted this it seemed that the only way to prove it and silence the warring voices in my head was to actually go and do something about, show what I was made of and what I was willing to do to achieve my goals. The closer I got to the village the more of it I could see and as I approached not only did I get a good look at the off-white sides of the houses with their red single roofs I could also see the villagers now. They were squat little things wearing these large funny white hats covered in red dots with an open blue vest trimmed in yellow, waist high white pants, and large round brown shoes. The others in a pink variation of this outfit with a dress I could only conclude to be the females of the species.

By the time I had taken a fire flower out of my shell and eaten it I was close enough to the village for the villagers to have stopped what they were doing and look at me as I approached Once I was close enough to begin the first phase of my mission they were still just standing there staring at me, I suppose it was due to having never seen a human in a koopa shell before so I decided to educate them a little. Holding my arm up slowly as I approached I formed a fireball in my hand and let an evil grin form in my mouth.

"This is the part where you start screaming and running…"

Already nervous at the sight of me they didn't need anymore reason beyond what I said to do just that, they immediately dropped whatever it was they were doing and took off running in every direction possible trying to get away from me. With both hands in play on this little outing I began to hurl fireballs at anything that moved and several of the villagers let out high pitched screams as they were knocked to the ground and badly burned. Even the buildings proved to be little trouble as I continuously lobbed projectiles through doors, windows, and if I put enough force behind it at times I could even penetrate walls. What amazed me more than anything was the fact I hadn't met any resistance in the village, no soldiers, no militia, nothing. It didn't take me long to turn the village into an inferno and I was really starting to get into my work when I heard the sound of what I thought was someone exiting a pipe noticed a red blur hop into the air briefly from behind one of the houses.

That was all I needed to see to know that the cavalry had arrived and extinguishing the fireball in my hand I quickly ducked behind one of the houses I had recently set aflame, fortunately only the roof was burning at the moment. I slowly inched my was to the corner and slowly peeked around it to see a short, pudgy man in red overalls with a matching hat and moustache dashing through the village with a bucket of water trying to douse my handiwork. He was trying to douse the flames on a house across the street and though he was running back and forth his back was turned to me the entire time, oh how easy it would have been. I could have just lobbed the biggest fire I could summon and he never would have seen it coming, but alas I didn't. Even though I had just committed an act of terror I suppose it was important to maintain at least one virtue and for me that was honor, at least so far as not striking someone when their back was turned.

Instead of confronting the legendary menace I resigned myself to dashing away from the village and waiting until I was a few hundred yards away before I turned to survey my handiwork and what a sight it was. Even from this distance I could see flames dancing across the rooftops as large black pillars of smoke rose into the air. I had no doubt in my mind that this would catch their attention, and there was also no doubt that I had just passed the point of no return. I was a criminal now just like the other koopas, a terrorist who was working for the 'bad guys' as some might say but you know, bad is really just a matter of perspective. I could have killed many of the villagers in fact I likely could have killed most of them before Mario had ever arrived but I didn't, instead I had just wounded them. I realize some might still consider that bad and it probably was, but never the less they would live to see another sunrise, I could live with it and that's what mattered to me.

The next thing on the agenda was to hit another town and cause some more chaos and destruction, even the map wasn't much help in this situation considering the fact that the two towns were almost an identical distance from one another. After a brief moment of contemplation on the matter I decided to head for the town that was closest to the ocean, not only would this put me in line to eventually hit Port Rogue but town by the ocean seem to attract people so it was likely the larger of the two populations was here. The only part of this journey that was rather annoying now was the fact I didn't know the pipe system well enough to just go jaunting around so the next leg of the trip would be just that, by leg.

'Note to self, get a pipe system map when I get back to the castle'


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

When Bowser had first sent me on this little mission of terror I was concerned about how dangerous it would be, but all in all things had proved to be surprisingly easy. The villages had offered no resistance and I had managed to turn all three population centers into raging infernos and stay ahead of the opposition without incident, I had even managed to detonate a couple of engine cars at the transport hub which turned out to be a fairly large railway station. The last item on the agenda was Rogueport which gave me slight pause when I stopped and thought about the name. Either Rogueport was just a cute little name this town had been given or it actually had meaning, and if it had meaning it meant I might meet some resistance here. Up until now I had been running roughshod through the Mushroom Kingdom without meeting any resistance and I knew sooner or later I would encounter one or more individuals willing to at least try to stand up to me when I attacked a town.

With this in mind I decided to approach the port town from the least likely point of entry for someone intent on attacking, the port itself. The first part of this mission would involve scouting the town to see what level of population and activity I was looking at and from a nearby hilltop I laid there on my stomach carefully watching the comings and goings of the people. From what I could see Rogueport appeared to be a fairly bustling town which meant I would need to watch my back once I started my attack, after all the last thing you want is someone sneaking up behind you in the middle of a mission. Even from my hilltop which was almost directly in front of the town I could see the masts of four ships that were moored at the docks rising over the high faded red walls of the town, those would be the first to go.

The whole setup seemed so easy to me I didn't even understand why they'd bothered constructing a wall as the gates were standing wide open and not even manned by any guards. There were a wide variety of creatures moving in and out of the town and none of them seemed to be overly concerned about security, there weren't even any sentries on the walls. That was another thing running through my mind, how in the hell had Bowser been thwarted so many times in his attempts to take over the Mushroom Kingdom that was still something I was trying to figure out, oh well, best start getting to work.

It didn't take me long to formulate a plan in my head, and that plan was to circle around the east side of the town and approach the port from the back before beginning my attack by setting the ships on fire before moving into the town itself, and once inside basically do what I had done up until now set fire to everything in sight. It was odd how easily I fell into the role, and the part that was even more interesting was how the more I did this the more I enjoyed doing it. Did it make me an evil person to enjoy laying siege to a town, right at this point I really didn't care by the time I was done with Rogueport I would have succeeded in doing enough damage to the Mushroom Kingdom so as to keep them licking their wounds for some time after this which was the whole point of this little outing.

The other thing that had surprised me as I dashed around the side of the town was how light this shell was that I was wearing, you'd think by looking at it that this thing would weigh a ton but it was in fact surprisingly light-weight and easy to move in. As I made my way to the eastern wall I quickly ducked behind some old wooden crates that had been left piled outside and peered out cautiously to see if there was anyone nearby. Once I had made sure the coast was clear I continued around back to where the port was located.

From here I got a good view of what was going on and I could see four large ships, these ships the mushroom people were using looked like something out of my own world's past with a high bowed wooden frame. The deck of the ships were constructed with the wheel that guided the ship at the rear with one large mast in the center of the ship between the two smaller ones with the large white cloth sails pulled up and tied into place. Each of the ships had been anchored with a gang plank leading down from the ship to the walk way so I knew trying to move them quickly was out of the question, they were just waiting to be torched. Without further delay I decided to try a new technique with my recently acquired fire powers and from the corner of the wall where I was standing I started hurling fireballs at the ships in rapid succession.

Unlike the fireballs I had used in the attacks on the towns these were not as powerful, but this method allowed me to produce them a lot faster as I held one hand in front of me and just scooped the ammunition out and hurled it with the other as fast as it formed. Within a matter of seconds the decks of the ships were littered with little balls of fire that didn't waste any time in using the wood to spread themselves and once they had caught fire rather nicely the people on the docks were so concerned about the fires they didn't even seem to take notice of me… all the better. As casually as someone coming to visit the town I walked along the wall until I reached the port gate and just let myself inside. I could see other people that were already rushing towards the docks to see what all the commotion was about passing me by without a second glance.

Rogueport itself seems to have been constructed in a hap-hazard manner with a variety of buildings of all shapes and sizes lining the streets of the town with little apparent attention being paid to city design. These bland square buildings with their off-white and dull brown walls seem to have been constructed for the needs of the owner on a piecemeal basis rather than with an overall design in mind. Paying little attention to the people running past me I looked the town over for a moment and realized this city was large enough that it might take me a while to do some serious damage so I to get to work. Without actually specifically targeting anything or anyone in particular I just strolled down the street hurling fireballs in just about every direction as I went listening for the sound of screaming villagers as they realized I was the source of all the commotion.

The flaming trail of destruction I left in my wake as I made my way towards the center of town seemed to be having the desired effect as the people were running about in every direction with some of them seemingly confused by everything that was going on around them, it was turning into complete pandemonium in Rogueport which was only serving to further my goal of keeping the town in such a state of panic that no one would bother to look twice at me. Instead of just throwing aimless destruction in every direction I decided to choose my targets and cause some serious damage since this was the center of town and picking out an open front merchant stand I held my arm up and began to charge up a fairly large fireball… and this was where things got interesting. Before I was able to launch my attack I was struck square in the side of the head by a ball of fire causing my fireball to dissipate as I lost my concentration.

"Son of bitch! Who the f-"

The rest of my sentence ground to a sudden halt as I spun on my attacker and see the last thing I had wanted to see. Standing there not more than thirty feet away from me was Mario himself next to a pipe and in an attack stance holding another fireball in his right hand. Trying my best to hide my apprehension I straightened myself up and looked right at him.

"Well well well, if it isn't the man himself."

Against the advice of Ludwig I decided to fight Mario one on one to see what all the fuss was about and how one fat little Italian plumber could be causing so much trouble, after all I had Wendy's pendant if things got too hairy.

"Why are you adoing this eh?" he asked with a considerable Italian accent.

"Hey, don't take it personally there amigo, just following orders. Glad you showed up though, this is something I've been looking forward to."

This was in itself a bold faced lie considered I had ducked out on our first possible encounter. The truth of the matter was I was quite nervous about facing off against the one person capable of taking down Bowser, but I figured if I didn't gain any combat experience now, then when would I? Rather than diving into a long drawn out dialogue I responded by using both hands to hurl fireballs at him as rapidly as I could, a little too rapidly in fact as about one in every four times I extended my hand all I got was a little puff of fire but never the less I kept going.

As I had expected Mario was able to match me fireball for fireball and extinguished them in mid-air before they ever got to him causing small bursts of flame to erupt between us. I quickly changed tactics and running at him as I continued to fire I closed the distance between us before leaping into the air with my leg extended and that when foot A met face B, unfortunately it was his foot and my face. With a speed that belied his chubby frame the little plumber had managed to jump higher than me and plant the heel of his shoe squarely in my face and sent my crashing unceremoniously to the ground. I managed to scramble to my feet and backed away quickly before my head had even cleared completely only to see a blurry white fist coming straight at my face right before my jaw slid sideways with considerable pain and I once again found myself flat on my back. It took me a moment to clear my vision but when it did I saw Mario standing there over top on me with a fireball held in his hand obviously waiting for me to surrender.

"Give it up." he said.

Now it was my turn to surprise him. This little idea popped into my head on the spur of the moment because I knew if I raised me hand to form a fireball he could pummel me before I had a chance to strike him. Instead I focused the internal energy generated by the fire flower into my mouth and belched a good two foot stream of fire at him. He managed to dodge the attack even if in a somewhat surprised and uncoordinated fashion but this unexpected turn of events had thrown him off balance and given me the time I needed to recover, though it also came at a price. As I stood up again my tongue and the entire inside of my mouth felt like I had just stripped a layer of skin off of it and the pain was almost unbearable, fire flowers as it seems weren't meant to be breathed.

Again I began to hurl fireballs at him and again he matched me throw for throw only this time I had decided to change my strategy slightly. Instead of just hurling another rapid fire stream of fireballs at him I only used one hand in this attack and holding the other behind me I began charging the biggest fireball I could summon. Once it was ready I hurled it at him with an overhead pitch much like a professional baseball pitcher.

"Eat this!" I yelled.

The excitement from my attack was cut short when the fireball erupted in mid-air and another appeared that was roughly twice the size of the one I had thrown. I knew from the stance I was in that there was no way I'd be able to dodge in time and just muttered to myself much as I had when I first arrived.

"Shit…"

When one fireball meets another in mid-air they often erupt into flames as they collide causing a small flash of fire, but when this one hit I think it actually exploded, mind you my recollection of said event was a little fuzzy due to the fact I was in the process of being thrown through, yes I said through, the wall behind me. When I hit, I hit with such force that the wall of the building gave out and I came to a sliding stop on the floor at the front of a trail of dust and debris.

"Ow…" I coughed

Through blurry eyes I could see Mario already walking towards me and when I tried to push myself upright my body was wracked by searing pain. It was then that I looked down at myself and realized I had been burnt, badly burnt, my skin had taken on a pasty white complexion and welts were already beginning to form on my arms and legs and that was when I knew the fight was pretty much over. With a few quick grasps I managed to take hold of the pendant around my neck as I pointed at Mario.

"This isn't over fat man, this ain't over! We're just getting started you and me!"

There was so much pain flooding my mind at this point that it was hard to focus and by the time I had activated the pendant I saw another fireball coming at me as the entire scene around me faded to black, then much as I had arrived Wendy's room the first time it materialized around me and I again crashed to the floor. Between being flash fried, knocked through a wall, and crashing into the floor, it was taking everything I had just to stay conscious as I looked over and saw Wendy talking on the phone. I wanted to say 'Get a doctor' but a low moan was all that came out before I lost consciousness and the world around me faded to black.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

"He's coming around…"

"…idiot… told him not…"

"…be alight?"

The sounds and voices I heard as I slowly began to regain consciousness were sporadic at best and hard to make out, but from what I could hear Wendy, Ludwig, and another koopa I didn't recognize were close by. The lights were so bright when I tried to open my eyes I had to shield them with my hand until they had adjusted to the light and slowly focusing I could see Wendy, Ludwig, and a koopa in a white coat whom I assumed was a doctor of some sort crowded around me. The room itself looked almost like any other room in the castle with its old grey stone walls and was actually sparsely furnished aside from the a series of beds that were lining either wall. Upon closer inspection I could see there were still a number of Koopa Troops laid up from the Stinit attack with a variety of casts and bandages covering their bodies. Wendy looked worried, Ludwig had some sort of smartass smile on his face, and the doctor was reading over a clipboard and nodding to himself.

"You took on Mario did you?" Ludwig asked.

"Gee, that obvious huh?"

"I warned you he'd kick your ass."

"Yeah I didn't count on winning either, but how else am I gonna learn to fight him if I don't just well… fight him."

Taking a moment to look down at myself I saw that I was only covered by a thin sheet and when I looked underneath it turned out I really was only covered by a thin sheet. I glanced around the room quickly and saw both my shell and my clothes neatly arranged on a table a few feet away, greeeeeat, now I had a bunch of koopas inspecting me in my birthday suit. Almost as a reflex action I reached up and grabbed my shoulder where Wendy had left a bite mark the other night and quickly felt around realizing that it had somehow been healed, as a matter of fact all of my wounds had been healed now that I thought about it.

"Don't worry, the doctor thought the bite mark was a from the Stinit attack the other day." Ludwig whispered with a quick wink.

"Huh? Uh… what?"

"Wendy almost took one of my fingers off one time when I pissed her off; you think I wouldn't recognize my own sister's teeth marks?" He said wiggling an index finger.

"I-I don't know what you mean…" I lied.

"The bite mark, the pendant, her checking on you every five minutes, do I look like an idiot to you?"

"Oh god, you haven't told…"

"Nah, I ain't told no one, figured I'd let Wendy have a little fun while she could seeing as how King Dad's gonna kill you when he find out."

Slumping back on the bed I let out a low sigh, damn Ludwig, why'd he have to be so smart. Everything was going great for the most part up until now, well aside from being fried by a damn plumber then having Ludwig put two and two together to figure out what else was going on. Seems it was fairly easy to get yourself in hot water regardless of what dimension you were in. With that sinking in Ludwig stepped back still smiling smugly and let the doctor have his turn.

"You're pretty lucky there Alex, getting back here as soon as you did."

"Why's that?"

"Because if those wounds had had enough time to really set in you might have suffered some permanent scarring."

"Speaking of which, how did you heal me anyway?"

"Oh yeah that's right, you're new here. Koopa Magic, a lot of outsiders don't know it but Koopa Magic doesn't just turn people into stone and other objects, it can heal wounds too if you can get to the person fast enough. I'd take it easy for the next few days though, you'll probably still be pretty sore for a while."

"Yeah, what about the Stinit bite? Had that for a while, it's gone."

"Well fortunately the Stinit bite wasn't serious; there was no muscle damage there, just superficial for the most part."

"Lucky me," I grumbled, "so how long am I gonna be laid up doc?"

"Well your wounds are healed enough that you can leave right now if you want, but you'll need to take it easy for the next couple of days. Koopa Magic can heal wounds, but still its best if you get some rest and let your body sort itself out if you know what I mean."

On the doctor's advice I took it slowly when I tried to sit up and I could see what he meant as my joints were pretty stiff when I tried to move. Wendy who had been standing back this whole time trying to look inconspicuous apparently couldn't wait any longer and when I slid my feet over the side of the bed, making sure to keep myself covered with the sheet she came over next to me and put her hand on my arm.

"Alex, you okay?" she asked.

"Ah I'll be fine, you heard to doc, nothing a little Koopa Magic and some bed rest can't fix. Speaking of which, doc you mind handing me my boxers?"

I could see Ludwig out of the corner of my eye just leaning against the wall and smiling from ear to ear while all of this was going on and I knew he was just waiting for the other shoe to fall, the only problem was that shoe was named Bowser and when it fell I would probably get crushed by it. I'm just glad I was able to get my boxers on without flashing the entire room and carefully made it to my feet before fully dressing myself shell and all even though my shirt was little more than a charred rag by now. The more I thought about it the more I realized how fast things were moving and how quickly my situation was getting complicated.

When I had first arrived in the Mushroom Kingdom, and more specifically in Bowser's castle, my main concern was just trying to survive in a strange land I know almost nothing about. Now in the span of just over two weeks I had become the personal instrument of terror to a tyrant king, damn near had my ass handed to me by a plumber, had a koopa princess who had taken an obvious liking to me, and a smug brother who was content just wait and watch me get fried when her father, the afore mentioned tyrant, found out what was going on between his daughter and I.

That was also something that had really taken me by surprise, Wendy, the greedy, self-center, materialistic princess who for reason unknown to me had decided I was right up her alley, I still had no idea why she was attracted to me, hell we weren't even the same species. She had also been the aggressor in the situation coming after me and while I hadn't kicked her to the curb so to speak I hadn't done anything to discourage her either, why is completely beyond me. It's not to say that I didn't like her per say, but I had never really thought about 'her' much until Ludwig had approached the subject the way he had, in fact I'd never really thought about the subject at all. Even back home on Earth I'd been single for going on six years, I'd just been so wrapped up in my life I'd never really taken the time to have a personal relationship with a woman, let alone a koopa woman.

Now I had Wendy who was undeniably interested in me which added several new layers of complicated to my situation. Was she just interested in the 'fringe benefits' as she had put it, did she want something more, if so, what? How Bowser would react when he found out about this and would I live long enough to explain? I was starting to get a headache thinking about all of this. For the time being the best thing for me to do would be to deal with the situation at hand and worry about the other problems when they popped up, at the moment the mission was to report to Bowser and see if there was anything else he needed me to do. Despite the doctor's order I didn't want to look like I just gotten my ass handed to me as badly as I had on my very first mission so stiff or not I was just going to have to suck it up and report in.

My body was still stiff enough that I had to stretch a few times get my muscles moving but once I had everything in order I headed for the door and I had just taken hold of the door knob when I saw Ludwig wink at me again and just grumbled to myself as I walked out into the hallway leaving both he and Wendy in the infirmary. Stopping one of the troops who was heading into the infirmary I asked him if he knew where Bowser was at the moment and he said probably in the war room, so after getting directions as to exactly where the war room was I began heading that way.

As I made my way through the winding, dimly lit halls of Castle Koopa I wondered to myself why exactly it was that Bowser intimidated me so much and it occurred to me it was my own subconscious realization that he could easily kill me if he wanted to. He outweighed me by several hundred pounds, he was no doubt much stronger and tougher than I was, able to breathe fire, and one hell of a sorcerer so yeah those were all good reasons to be intimidated by him. Personally I think that despite all that it was his attitude that scared people the most, the way he carried himself that alone said he could, and undoubtedly would kill someone if he had to.

Once I had reached the war room I stopped just inside the doorway and looked around the room carefully, that along with the fact I was almost knocked over by the wall of heat that hit me when I entered. This room in particular with its high vaulted ceiling had open lava flowing around all four sides of the room save for the small stone foot bridge I was standing on. There was a large square platform in the middle of the room with the front half only a few inches higher than the lava flow which led to the section in the back that was raised about three feet higher with a central staircase leading up. The eerie glow given off by the lava and dim lighting of the room didn't help to detract from its gothic look.

Along with Bowser there was a Magi-Koopa, two decidedly older looking Hammer Brothers, and his son Roy standing around the table all of whom paused briefly to look my way before returning to their conversation. Well aware of the proper etiquette in these situations I approached the gathering but once I reached the top of the stairs I just stood there waiting to be addressed before I said anything. My appearance had apparently brought to conversation to a halt now as they all looked to Bowser who regarded me and slowly walked around an old steel table covered with a variety of maps, some of which were of lands I was unfamiliar with.

"Report." was all he said.

"The mission was mostly a success sir; I was able to cause immense damage to four of my five designated targets before encountering resistance."

"What kind of resistance?"

"The Mario kind sir."

"That would explain the three day stay in the infirmary."

Three days?! Damn, that was something I had forgotten to ask, how long I'd been laid up in the hospital.

"Yeah got his happy ass fried hehe." Roy commented.

"Do you have any other standing orders sir?"

"As a matter of fact I do. As you may or may not be aware when the Stinit invaded the Dark Lands they sealed off all exits both in and out of not only here, but the whole Mushroom Kingdom. I want you to accompany my son Roy on a mission to a forward outpost the Stinits have established just inside our borders."

"Mission objectives?"

"Bring back the wand used by the Stinit wizards so that Ludwig and Iggy along with the rest of the science division can reserve engineer it and figure out how to unseal the pipe network leading out of the Mushroom Kingdom."

"When do we leave sir?"

"Midnight," with that Bowser waved his hand, "you may go."

Clicking my heels together and saluting like I'd seen soldiers do on television I turned on my heel and quickly exited the war room. Looks like my vacation from Stinit fighting had come to an abrupt end, and not only that, I was going to be teamed with Roy Koopa on this little outing which would be interesting considering this would be the first time I would actually met him since my arrival. With my next mission scheduled to start at midnight I figured it best to try to get a little more sleep before then to hopefully let my joints unwind a little before taking on a whole Stinit outpost. Upon arriving at my room Wendy was waiting for me and leaning against the wall next to the door as I walked up.

"Something I can do for you princess?"

"Can we talk for a minute Alex?"

"Sure uh, come in." I motioned for her to enter as I opened the door.

As a closed the door behind me she walked over and hoped up on the bed and by the look on her face I could tell she was thinking about something, but what I had no idea. Before sitting down I took my shell off which actually was becoming a rather uncomfortable weight with the wounds I was nursing, then walked over and sat down beside her. There was a moment of awkward silence and Wendy fidgeted slightly before she finally spoke up.

"Alex, do you um, uh, well you know… like me?"

"Well to be honest I've been so busy lately I haven't had time to give it any serious thought, but I don't see why not, why?" I decided to let her lead the conversation.

"Well I was thinking about the other night..."

"And?"

"I liked it a lot, I mean that was the first time I've ever… uh…"

"Wait minute, you mean that was the first time you ever…" I arched a brow curiously.

"Yeah."

"Oh wow, can I ask you something Wendy?"

"Sure."

"Why do you like me? You hardly know me and well I'm not sure if it's a big deal here but we're not even the same species."

"Well because you saved my life for one."

"I'm sure your father and brothers would have done the same in my place."

"Yeah but that's different they're my family you're not, that plus you're the first guy who's ever really been nice to me, but I mean if you don't like me that's cool, I understand."

It was then that I finally realized what it was, and quite possibly the reason Wendy was the way she was. The snobbish attitude was a defense mechanism she used to keep others at a distance, the tantrums she threw were cries for attention, and the greed and materialism, they were an attempt to fill the emotional void in her life left by the lack of attention she got from her family or anyone else. When I looked into her eyes I also saw something I hadn't seen before, the tiniest spark of hope that after all these years of loneliness and isolation that maybe, just maybe, someone was interested in her. Despite the different worlds we came from and the fact that we were even of a different species I could see that just like anyone else that deep down she just wanted someone to care about her. I honestly didn't have the slightest idea what to say to all of this so instead I just put my arm around her shell and let her lean up against me and she kicked her feet a little and let out a small but happy giggle.

"You do realize the problem with this situation don't you?"

"Problem?" she looked up at me.

"Uh yeah, the eight foot tall fire breathing problem that's gonna fuckin' kill me when he finds out."

"Oh yeah… that." She grimaced.

"Plus Ludwig already knows."

"What?! How'd he figure- he hasn't told anyone has he?"

"No, at least he said he hasn't and come on Wendy, its Ludwig we're talking about here. I like to pride myself on my intelligence but even I'm not as smart as he is."

"Yeah I guess you're right, um… can we cross that bridge when we come to it?"

"I guess we'll have to."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

The more I found out about this land the stranger I found things to be, in particular the inconsistent levels of technology throughout the kingdom. There were old fashioned sailing ships at the docks in Portrouge, a Koopa Air Guard consisting of a fleet of airships, and now I was tearing across Dark Land with Roy in what seemed to be a high powered go-cart and I mean literally just that. It was a steel tube car frame painted black with an engine behind us, four wheels, and a pair of leather seats, a steering wheel and that was it, but this thing was tearing up the country side at speeds I could only imagine doing in a go-cart back home. They also apparently didn't name this place Dark Land for just for kicks. The sky was covered in a perpetual thick layer of clouds that blocked out most of the light as large peels of thunder and streaks of lightning made their way from one end of the sky to the other and the ground, what there was of it considering the open lava flows around us, was little more than dry caked dirt that left a large dust cloud in the wake of our vehicle.

Even though the open lava flows made me fairly nervous Roy didn't seem too bothered by it even when he cut corners close enough to pick our vehicle up off two of its wheels briefly and I figured we were either going to reach our destination in record time or the car would flip and we'd both be char chrispies. The only thing that even came close to comforting me was the fact that the way Roy handled the car he seemed to know what he was doing and I tried my best to keep that thought in mind, for what little good it did. As we approached our target from a distance Roy turned the wheel sharply to the left and slid the car to the side next to a small grove of straggly trees and bushes as we came to stop.

"Well, here we are plumber bait." He said, looking ahead of us.

I started to say something but stopped before getting a word out and glared at Roy for a moment in regards to that last comment though he didn't seem to take notice. As it turns out the 'outpost' we were suppose to invade looked, at least in my opinion, more like a full fledged military base. Plainly built in a hasty manner the base itself was surrounded by a wooden palisade much like you'd see in an old wild west military fort with tree trucks tried together to form a makeshift wall, a wall that was at least five hundred feet in diameter with a steady stream of sentries manning the wall. Roy quickly pushed our vehicle into the stand of trees and we began our own little game of mission impossible by ducking and dashing behind various boulders and bushes until we were less than a few hundred yards from the outpost behind a large outcropping of boulders.

"Deys gota ta have a wizard in a place dat big."

"I agree, but the problem is how are we going to get in, even if we could catch a couple of the Stinits outside the wall, beat the crap out of them and steal their robes it wouldn't work, we're too big to pass ourselves off as Stinits. Maybe if we snuck around the back and-"

Before I could continue with my idea Roy just patted me on the shoulder and reached into his shell producing a golden five point star about the size of his hand.

"Don't worry, I gots dis. Dey's about to get introduced to a Roy Special."

I wasn't sure what a Roy Special was, but considering a human could throw balls of fire after eating a fire flower I was most curious to as to what a star would do to a koopa.

"I'll handle getting' dem distracted, you just sneak into da base and get dat wand."

With that Roy pressed the star between his hands and as it disappeared in a small flash of light his skin took on a yellow glow as his visibly grew a few inches in height, gained additional size to his already considerable mass, and his body which was already husky gained muscular definition. Without warning he jumped over the outcropping of rocks we were hiding behind and took off in a full speed charge right at the wall of the Stinit outpost. At first I thought he was out of his mind until he actually reached the wall and smashed into it with such force that a sizable ten foot section exploded into a shower of wooden chunks and splinters as he kept going. I just sat there blinking for a moment.

"I have got to get me one of those."

It didn't take long for the Stinits to be up in arms and sound the alarm and at first I thought this to be somewhat of a rash plan until I saw the sentries on the wall join the fray and I knew that was my cue. Taking off at a full run I quickly closed the distance to the wall and peered around the corner to see the situation inside and what a situation it was. Like a bull in a china shop Roy was smashing anything in sight and crushing the Stinits like rag dolls when they got to close and at one point he even crushed the support beams of a watch tower and brought it down on himself only to smash through the debris without a scratch on him.

While he was doing his juggernaut thing and drawing all the attention from the outpost I slipped around the wall and quickly started dashing between the hastily constructed log cabins, I didn't know how long Roy could keep up his act so I knew time was of the essence. It didn't take me long to find what appeared to be the command center as it was the largest building in the outpost, a two story log cabin, bearing a purple standard with the symbol of a skull with two olive braches on either side and a sword driven through the top emblazed in gold. I was about to risk a look into one of the windows when the door flew open and a group of Stinits came dashing out sending me back behind the building I was next to, and then I saw it.

Coming out behind the rest of the warriors was a Stinit dressed in a robe that had gold filigree designs inlayed all around the seams and a wand in his right hand, it seems the wizard was also the outpost commander. Letting the others get ahead of the wizard I waited for him to move far enough out for me to be able to take off at a dash and do my best impression of a track star as I came up behind him. Silence wasn't one of the tactics in play here and he started to turn to see who was behind him when I jumped up and turned sideways in mid-air literally using my body as a battering ram. We both crashed to the ground in a cloud of dust and as the wizard was raising his wand towards me I grabbed his chin and head with both hands and with a sharp jerk his neck made a satisfying snapping sound. Without a moment to loose I snatched the wand out of his lifeless hand and took off through the main stretch of the outpost passing both Stinits and Roy as I held up our prize.

"Hit it and get big'un!" I yelled.

Seeing me with wand in hand Roy who had been letting the Stinits gang up on him to draw their attention took off and was actually passing me in a matter of seconds with such a head of steam I could hear his feet hitting the ground as he ran. Using his momentum and lead he cleared a path for me as several Stinits tried to block our path as we ran for the hole in the wall only to have Super Roy smash through them like a they were nothing more than bowling pins. It seems that my timing was also right on cue as we were less than one hundred yards outside the outpost when the yellow glow around Roy's skin faded and he shrank back to his normal appearance as we took off through the field towards our car for all we were worth with the whole of the Stinit outpost hot on our heels. I was surprised because despite his girth Roy had kept pace with me the whole way… that was until we got to where we had stashed out vehicle.

The both of us came to a screeching halt a short distance away from the small grove of trees to find almost thirty Stinits grouped around the car waiting for us when we got there and before we had time to react reinforcements were coming up fast to our rear.

"If you gots any bright ideas now would be da time for'em." Roy growled.

"Can you actually pull yourself into that shell of yours Roy?"

"Yeah why?"

"Cause you're going to need to in a minute, cover me after this."

With an entire contingent of Stinits now encircling us I placed the wand into my shell and took a fire flower out from behind me and slid it into my mouth.

"Time to see if I can pull of an Alex Special." I said.

I had no idea if this harebrained scheme would actually work or not, but feeling the internal fire ignite within me I decided to try something I had never done before, something that could quite possibly kill me but then again possibly was better than the definitely we were facing with the Stinits. Even with Roy's brutality and my agility we were facing almost one hundred Stinits and those were odds even we couldn't match single handedly. Closing my eyes I focused all of the internal energy I could muster and began to compress it within my chest and the harder I pushed the harder I could feel the energy pushing back against me making my skin hotter by the second. Just when it seemed the Stinits were about to move in I opened my eyes and standing there I could see the waves of heat rising from my skin.

"Roy… duck."

Without having to be told twice Roy pulled himself into his shell as I threw my arms out and my head went back as I let out a yell as I unleashed all the energy I had compressed within me in a blast that literally exploded around me if a massive dome of fire. Roy's shell was able to withstand the blast and he was only tossed into the air some sixty feet or so, the Stinits on the other hand, those who weren't immediately incinerated where burned, wounded, and tossed around like kindling. As for me after an attack like that I not only felt every bit of fire drain out of my body, but every bit of my own energy reserves as well and I collapsed onto the ground barely able to remain conscious. Moments later I felt a hand drag me along and toss me into what I determined to be the car once I heard the engine roar to life and shortly thereafter I could feel the wind flying through my hair as we took off.

"Damn Alex, you is one crazy mother fucker!" Roy said.

"Did it work?" I mumbled.

"Yeah it cleared'em out all right but you coulda killed yoself pullin' a stunt like dat."

"Gee I didn't know you cared."

"I don't," he growled, "I just don wanna hafta explain ta King Dad why his new play toy is takin' a dirt nap."

Fortunately the ride back to the castle was a peaceful one, at least I think it was, I passed out a few moments after that.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Once again I was laid up in bed for close to a day sleeping off the effects of the 'Alex Special' before I finally woke up in my own bed with a stretch and a yawn to find my clothes and my shell neatly arranged on my dresser, if I didn't know any better I'd swear these koopa were starting to enjoy stripping me down. Not sure what time it was I looked out the window of my room, or rather Roy's blast hole, and remembered that trying to tell time in the Dark Land this way was pointless as the cloud cover kept it perpetually dark here. Once again dressing myself I decided it was time for a little change of scenery to coin a phrase and I was going to give myself a little vacation considering the fact I had just stuck my neck out twice on a dangerous mission. I wasn't going to turn down another assignment, but if Bowser wanted me I was going to let him summon me rather than immediately volunteering.

I also decided to pursue a little matter of personal interest while I had some time to kill though how I would go about this was a little annoying. I had decided to spend a little time getting to know Wendy better, but considering we had to keep our new found relationship on the down low asking the guards around the castle where I could find her was out of the question, and hunting for someone in a place this size could be a monumental task. In order to avoid aimlessly wandering through the halls all afternoon I thought to myself, where I would be if I were a young woman without much to do, then it came to me, burning up the phone. I had only seen her using the phone briefly when I had used the pendant to escape from Portrogue but from what I could remember she was laying on the bed with the phone cord wrapped around one finger and looked to be rather engrossed in the conversation she was having. It seemed that once again regardless of what dimension you came from if there was a phone around that a teenage girl was bound to be on it.

With that little matter settled I headed out of my room and made the short trip a few halls over to where all the koopalings were housed close to one another and fortunately didn't see anyone out and about in the hall. I didn't waste any time making my way to Wendy's room and tried to knock on the door as discretely as possible.

"Who the hell is it?!" she snapped.

"It's Alex."

There was a small commotion in her room before the door opened and I was literally jerked inside as she quickly closed and bolted the door. No sooner was I in the room than she had her arms around me in a hug so tight I was having trouble breathing.

"Glad to… see… you too… can't breathe…"

After I had managed to pry her arms loose enough to catch my breath I hugged her back still somewhat surprised by this sudden display of affection, was she really this smitten by me?

"Sorry, I was just glad to see you; I was worried when I heard dad had sent you on a mission against the Stinits."

"Yeah things got pretty hairy for a while but between the two of us Roy and I managed to pull it off."

"Well at least that dunder-head is good for something, even if it is mindless destruction."

As we both took a seat next to each other on the bed she looked over at me with a warm smile, which alone was rather unnerving coming from someone I'd seen be so vicious in the past, and kicked her feet a little.

"So did you need something or did you just stop by to see me?"

"Believe it or not I just stopped by to see you since I had a little free time on my hands." I did my best to smile back.

"You mean you really like me?" once again I was the recipient of a rather aggressive hug as she snuggled up next to me.

The truth of the matter was that the more I thought about it the more I realized that I actually did like her. Once you got past the greedy, self-center, short-tempered, materialistic, exterior I found that there actually was a nice young woman in there, I also realized I was likely the first person to ever see this side of her. Some people might consider everything I had mentioned to be considerable shortcomings, and they probably were but hey, who's perfect right? At that I chuckled to myself and marveled at how a person can justify almost anything if they really wanted to.

"Can I ask you something Wendy?"

"Sure, what's up?" she looked up after releasing me from the hug.

"It's about Bowser, I was just wondering, was he always so… damn vicious?"

"Actually no he used to have a pretty twisted sense of humor."

"What happened?"

At this Wendy looked down and from the expression on her faced it looked as though the event I had asked about seemed to have affected her as well.

"Here I'll show you."

With that she slid off the edge of the bed and walked over to the chest next to it. It took her a minute to rummage through everything before she finally produced what looked like a photo album bound in red leather. Hopping back onto the bed next to me she placed the book on her lap and slowly opened the cover. Inside I could see family photos in which Bowser was holding some of the koopalings along with what looked almost like another Bowser only this figure had a decidedly female appearance with blond hair instead of red and was considerably slimmer with almost half a head less height.

"Who is that?"

"That's my mother Clawdia."

What surprised me the most about the photos was that Bowser was actually smiling and playing with his children along with Clawdia and as she slowly turned the pages of the album I saw the side of a tyrant I didn't think possible. After about five or six pages I noticed that not only was there nearly a two year gap in the dates on the photos, but in the pictures after this Clawdia was nowhere to be seen. Even though Bowser was holding the koopalings in the photos there was no joy in his face, no laughter, he just sat there looking as if all the life had been drained out of him. Wendy was still looking at one of the photos of her mother slowly running a claw over her image and from the way she was sniffling I knew what had happened. Though I didn't know how I knew that Clawdia had died and it was something that still hurt Wendy deeply.

"He must have loved your mother very much."

"He did, when she died I think a part of him died with her. He stopped laughing and joking, he wouldn't spend time with us anymore; all he did was sit in his room and stare into the fireplace night after night." Despite her best efforts reliving these memories was breaking though the tough exterior she had spent so many years building up around herself and she finally broke down and starting crying, "It was like daddy had died too!"

Now I was sorry I had brought the subject up, sorry I had forced Wendy to remember something so painful from her past and now the only thing I could do was hold her close to me as she continued to sob and cry letting the album fall to the floor. I held her close to me and just rocked her back and forth gently for almost ten minutes before she was finally able to collect herself and sit up on the bed. Now she was on the defensive again, but mostly out of embarrassment.

"Oh my god, you must think I'm a total loser now." she said sniffling.

"No I don't. It doesn't make you a loser to love someone and it doesn't make you a loser to miss them when they're gone, in fact I envy you Wendy."

"Envy me, why?"

"Because my parents died when I was only six months old, I never got to know them; in fact I've never even seen a picture of them… it almost like they never existed…"

"I-I'm sorry, I didn't know."

"What's there to be sorry over, it's hard to miss someone you've never even seen."

The two of us sat there looking into each others eyes for what seemed to be an eternity and it was there that the we actually met for the first time, it was there we could see all the pain and suffering we had endured in our lives, and it was there that all the bullshit, all the bravado, and bluster we put on for the world was stripped away. Here in her room on the bed we saw each other for what we truly were, two people filled with so much pain and loneliness that we were just looking for someone to be with, someone to accept us for who we were despite all of our weaknesses and failing. It was also here that I had come face to face with one of my own personal demons, the demon of isolation.

I had kept myself emotionally detached for all these years and avoiding relationships because I was afraid of getting hurt, I was afraid of losing someone I cared for the way I had lost my parents. In this one moment I found that having faced this demon and let someone see me for who I was, let someone past that impenetrable barrier around my heart that I wanted to be with her more than anything else in my life, even more than the power and prestige I had been offered by her father, at this moment none of it was worth a damn to me outside of the young woman sitting in front of me and before I had even thought about it the two of us were locked in each others arms in a passionate embrace.

With both of our shells discarded on the floor next to us I laid there in bed with my arms folded behind my head and Wendy curled up next to me with her arm across my chest. Thinking about what had just happened between the two of us I realized something that actually scared the shit out of me… I was in love. It wasn't being in love itself that actually scared me; it was the thought of possibly losing the one I cared about. This was a thought that frightened me, but as with most anything in life you enter into it knowing there are risks involved, and to be honest I would rather take the chance of loving and losing over never loving at all because right at this moment I felt like the king of the fucking world.

"You know babe, I wouldn't be surprised if given enough time you kicked those stupid plumbers clear back to Brooklyn because the way you've been dealing with the Stinit, you make it look easy."

"Yeah I do make it look pretty easy don't…"

Letting my sentence trail off before even finishing it something in my mind clicked into place and it was as if I could suddenly see something so blatantly clear that I had overlooked before. Jumping out of bed like a shot I was already sliding my shell over my head before Wendy realized what was going on.

"Alex, what's wrong?"

"I have to go see your father, now!"


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

My rather reckless sprint through the castle require me to display some considerable leaping skills to avoid two near collisions as I tried to find Bowser as fast as possible. After asking one of the guards where he was and realizing I had to stop shaking him before he could answer me I finally located him on the wall of the castle just staring out into the Dark Land, slowing my breakneck pace I gathered myself and walked up the steps making my way over to where he was standing.

"I'm glad I found you sire, how are things going with the research to unlock the Mushroom Kingdoms external pipe system?"

As I asked I held my arms behind me and stared out over the castle walls much like he was. For a long time he continued to stare into the distance as if he hadn't heard me and I wasn't sure if he was lost in though or just trying to look dark and brooding, either way it was working. He eventually looked over at me briefly before turning back to the wall and took a deep breath.

"The research is moving along on schedule Ludwig estimates we should be able to unlock the pipe system within two days, he also thinks he can formulate a way to open a gate to the home dimension of the Stinits."

"So the next logical step would be to launch a surprise attack against them before they are prepared to strike at us, correct?"

"Yes, that would be the next logical step, which is why we won't because it's a trap."

"I would advise against an attack sire because I think it's a… trap…" I said looking at him, "damn you don't miss a beat do you?"

He actually chuckled slightly at this, "That's why I'm king my boy, because I don't miss a beat."

"Yeah but how did you know, I just figured it out myself."

"Repelling the initial attack, the raid on the outpost to recover the wand, it was all so easy… too easy."

"Yeah I know, this whole set-up stinks like fish market in July, so what's our next move?"

"Simple, spring the trap."

"But I thought you said…"

"I said spring the trap, I never said we would be the ones doing it."

"Ah now I understand, so who are we going to send in as the bait?"

"There is an individual that is rather well suited for this mission and I want you to go and hire him for me."

"Okay, who's the pasty?"

"Wario."

"Wario? I thought the word around the castle was that the two of you weren't on speaking terms."

"We're not, but Wario is possessed of a singularly simplistic drive, greed, for the right price he would sell his own mother."

"Fair enough, um, what if our would-be pasty actually makes it back in one piece?"

"If he makes it back alive I'll pay him."

"Also on another note, um how exactly is one person going to make much of a different in the face of the entire Stinit army?"

"Wario is also gifted with a considerable degree of strength, strength that rivals that of my own and he has over the years learned to apply this strength to unusually destructive ends. When… if… he returns it is likely that he will have done enough damage to provoke them into a direct confrontation on our terms, when they see that we're prepared to use guerilla tactics rather than an all out offensive I anticipate they will attack in full force… and we will be prepared for them."

"Alright, and exactly what should I say his mission actually is?"

"Simple, to cause as much chaos and destruction as possible. Tell him to come to the castle tomorrow morning."

As I made my way back down the stairs it occurred to me that Bowser had managed to stay in power as long as he had because he wasn't just big and powerful, he was also shrewd and intelligent. He had not only seen through the Stinit trap, but he was also moving pieces into place to force the Stinit's hand into meeting him on his terms, pretty damn slick in my book. The next phase of this little operation as errand boy was to actually locate the home of this Wario character and appeal to his sense of greed.

Cutting a path to Wario's castle in one of the cars Roy had used on our mission to the Stinit outpost I realized these things were in fact a hell of a lot harder to control than they looked. I had already damn near flipped this thing twice as I approached said castle across a field at Warp 9, it seemed these things were geared for light speed or not all. Once I had managed to bring the car to a stop I stepped out and surveyed his home. It was indeed a castle but oddly enough it looked almost as if no one was home. For my vantage point all I could see above the massive stone wall was a single building of the same material rising over it with a flag bearing a rather hideous looking face on it. I was about to call out when a figure appeared on the castle wall, it would seem the hideous face came with a body attached to it, and oddly enough he was dragging a bag behind him.

"Wario? Um hi, I came to deliver- HOLY SHIT!"

I hadn't actually come to deliver holy shit, the odd sounding sentence was actually the result of Wario reaching into the bag and hurling a bob-omb at me before I could finish what I had to say.

"Jesus Christ, are you out for your mind?!"

"Koopas ain't welcome here! Nyahahahahahahaha!"

"I'm just a messenger sent- fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!"

Soon I was dashing around the field to Wario's apparent delight trying not to get blown to piece and say what I had come to say before I finally just settled on yelling one word to catch his attention.

"MONEY!"

This seemed to bring his arm to a screeching halt as he raised an eyebrow and I took a moment to rest my hands on my legs and catch my breath.

"That's right, money, like I was TRYING to say Bowser sent me here to offer you a deal that will pay a lot of money."

He continued to stand there and look at me for a minute before letting go of the bag and waddling down off the wall, a few moments later the drawbridge opened and he made his way out of the castle and came over where I was standing.

:Good lord…" I mumbled to myself.

Not only was he close to half a head taller than I was he was easily twice as wide and despite his rotund body he had hands that were connect to tree trucks. With his hands on his sides he stood there tapping his foot and looking down at me.

"Well?"

"You heard about this Stinit problem that's cropped up recently?"

"Yeah, what's it got to do with me?"

"Nothing yet. Bowser wants you to head over to their place and lay some smack down on them."

"Why don't he just do it himself?"

Rather than actually explaining the reasons behind this or trying to come up with an excuse of some sort I decided to appeal to his sense of greed to derail any need for an explanation.

"Three hundred coins."

At this point in time I could all but literally see the dollar signs appear in his eyes at they lit up at the mention of three hundred coins. He began rubbing his hands together and cackled with a large grin before it occurred to him that I was still standing there and he quickly straightened up again.

"When and where does he wanna meet?"

"Tomorrow at the castle."

"Tell'em I'll be there."

"Wondeful..."

As it turned out this was most definitely not my day because when I went to get back in my car I noticed the only left was a smoking crater, great… I'm walking.

By the time I made it back to Castle Koopa every muscle in my body from the waist down felt like jello, you never realize how far away some place is until you have to walk back. I was in such a bad mood when I got back that when the guards snapped to attention at my approach I responded with a one finger salute and just kept going, the only thing I wanted to do was go to my room and to the hell to sleep. I had only been at this job for going on a week now I was already considering bucking for a raise because the shit I had to put up with was insane, an invading army, a plumber that kicked my ass, a Stinit outpost hell-bent on my destruction, and now some maniac that tried to blow me up just for delivering a message.

Most of the Koopa Troops that I encountered on the way up to my room took one good look at my face and gave me a wide berth as I stormed through the castle halls and by the time I managed to get to my destination I slammed the door with considerably more force than was needed and stripped down to my boxers. As I slid under the covers and turned over on my side to go to sleep I looked over my shoulder and yelled to no one in particular.

"This place is full of crazy people!"

Several hours and some much needed rest later I was laying in bed and just relaxing when there was a knock at my door. I knew it wasn't Wendy from the fact that to my knowledge she'd never knocked before entering so I just rolled over with a yawn.

"Who is it?"

"It's Ludwig."

That was the last person I expected or particularly wanted to see considering the fact that he had managed to figure out what was going on between his sister and I. The truth of the matter was I knew Bowser was no mental slouch either I just figured the only reason he hadn't put all the pieces together yet was because most of his attention was focused on dealing with the Stinits. Throwing the covers aside I got out of bed and dressed myself before I answered the door trying to figure out what he wanted in my head… blackmail probably.

"Yeah, whadda ya want?" I asked as I opened the door

"Follow me, there's something you need to see. Tell me Alex, what do you know about your parents?" he asked as we walked.

"My parents? Not much uh, they died when I was only six months old."

"Hmm, I see."

Now my curiosity was peaked. I'd never really gotten along with Ludwig to begin with so what could be so important that he felt I needed to see it and more importantly why the hell did he want to know about my parents. He didn't say anything else as we made our way back to his room and when he opened the door I noticed a computer sitting on one of the tables that I hadn't seen the first time I had visited his room. Taking a seat in front of it he started to type away and made a few clicks with the mouse before a display came up on screen.

"Do you know what this is?" he looked over at me.

"Never been big on genetics myself but it looks like a DNA sequence right?"

"Right, more specifically the DNA sequence of a Koopa Turtle, now…" he made another few clicks

"This is the DNA sequence from a Koopa Turtle clone I made a few days ago. Functionally he's perfect, no genetic abnormalities or defects, but if you'll look here, here, and here," he pointed to the screen "you'll notice slight differences in the DNA and RNA sequences which basically tags him as a clone. This isn't the first Koopa I've cloned and these differences show up the same in every subject."

"Alright, while admittedly this is a fascinating subject what does this have to do with me?"

With another few clicks of the mouse and a little more typing he changed the display on screen to show another DNA sequence.

"This is your DNA."

"Wait, what?! How did you get my DNA and why do you have it? This is something of a privacy matter you know."

"It's standard procedure for all Koopa Troops in case we need to identify remains or if we think we may be dealing with a possible doppelganger situation. I got it from the doctor in the infirmary a few days when you came back from Portrogue, he was running some blood tests to make sure you hadn't had any adverse reactions to being healed by Koopa Magic, seriously you're the first human to ever be employed by dad, we weren't entirely sure it would work on you."

"Alright, fair enough, so what's the big deal am I having an adverse reaction?"

"No…"

Taking a claw he pointed to three sections in the DNA sequence onscreen slowly it took me a minute to catch onto what he was pointing at before my entire world came crashing down around me ears… they were the same genetic markers that he had shown me in the Koopa Turtle clone.

"No… no… y-you can't be serious, this has to be some kind of mistake, it has to be, I'm not a goddamn clone!"

"DNA doesn't lie Alex."

My head was spinning at this point, rage, anger, fear, panic, my entire world had just fallen apart and without realizing it I suddenly turned all these emotions on Ludwig.

"What is this, some of sick joke?! You fiddle around with a display and tell me I'm a clone so you can get your jollies by watching me squirm, is that it, is it?!"

"Alex take it easy man, I admit I've got a pretty sadistic sense of humor sometimes but even I wouldn't joke about something like this."

"How… how'd you know?"

"Your hair, the only reason someone your age would have white hair is either by some event so traumatic in your past it caused your hair to turn prematurely white, or you were missing the gene for hair color. The odds of you simply missing the gene for hair color were so astronomical I'm not sure there's even a number for it so the only other option left is that you were a clone."

"I'm a clone… I'm- oh god!"

"What?"

"I'm a clone! Shit I remember seeing something on television back home about scientists who cloned a sheep!"

"Yeah so?"

"There was something wrong with it, it aged too fast, oh god how long do I have left?!"

"Well assuming you die from old age I'd guess another sixty to seventy years maybe?"

"Huh, what about…"

"Genetic degradation? Yeah it was a problem in some of the earlier clones; I even had to deal with it. I don't know who put you together but they apparently knew enough about the process to avoid the accelerated aging problem, I checked your DNA and it's clean there."

With that little disaster averted I finally managed to force my mind to stop running around my skull and screaming at the top of it's lungs as this finally began to set in. My whole life, everything I had thought I was, the parents I'd thought I had, was a lie, it was all a lie. I was a clone, a copy, and apparently a cheap one at that.

"Why did you tell me this Ludwig? Why not just let me believe my parents had died when I was just a kid?"

"I know it's rough man, but if you never know the truth about anything else in your life, you should at least know about yourself."

"Yeah, I guess you're right."


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

There curled up under the covers of my bed I thought about what Ludwig had just told me and it continued to repeat in my head over and over again. Clone… copy… knock-off… imitation… fake… fraud! That's what I was a fraud, a mockery of life, some… thing that didn't even have parents, I was just this creature grown in a laboratory and then thrown in the garbage when they were done with me. At first I was angry, then I was sad, and now… now it just hurt, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt in my entire life. I had always tried to imagine what my parents were like, did they love me, did they want me, were they happy together, and now all of that was gone what fleeting thoughts I had about them turned out to be nothing more than a fantasy I had made up in my head. When I heard the door to my room open I didn't even bother turning over to see who it was, right at this point it could be the grim reaper for all I cared.

"Alex?" I heard Wendy's voice behind me.

"What?"

"Ludwig, he just told me… I'm sorry."

"Why are you even here?"

"Why am I… because I love you?"

"Why, I'm not even a real man, I'm just a clone, a copy, a damn fraud." I said, finally turning over to face her as I sat up in bed.

Sitting on the bed next to me she put her arms around me and did her best to comfort me much in the way I had done for her when she had shown me the pictures of her mother. I held her in my arms and deep down inside it actually did make a difference, to know there was someone I could turn to in times like this, but there was still so much pain, so much hurt.

"Do you know what this feel like Wendy? I don't even have any parents I'm just this thing someone made in a laboratory… I'm just a copy of someone else… a human lie."

"You're not a lie Alex." She said looking up at me.

"What do you mean?"

"So you were made from the stuff someone else was made out of, so what? You didn't live his life; you don't have his memories and experiences. You've lived a completely different life than this other guy, your personality, your thoughts, your desires; they're all you, not him."

"So you don't think I'm a fake?"

With a sly smile she leaned up and kissed me on the mouth.

"The other night, the touch of your skin, the heat of your breath, the passion, felt real enough to me."

Once again I held Wendy close to me and I don't know how, maybe it was something in what she had said rather than the words themselves, but whatever it was it had managed to dull the blade that had just been driven into my heart by the revelation of my origins. Oh the pain was still there no doubt about that, but knowing that there was someone who cared about me, someone who didn't care where I had come from, that made the pain bearable, it turned it into something I could manage.

"Ludwig and Iggy should be able to unlock the pipe system sometime tomorrow and with your father's permission I'm going home for a few days."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because I need to know Wendy, I need to know who I was made from."

"You're coming back right?"

"What? Of course I'm coming back, I've got a reason now more than ever."

The next morning with my new mission in mind I set about looking for Bowser so that I could ask his permission to undertake this mission. While I realized that the Stinit war was a pressing matter that was looming just over the horizon I had hoped that he could spare me for just a few days in order for me to take care of this and then hopefully be back before the shit hit the fan like an atomic bomb. It didn't take me long to locate big and scaly as he was in the science lab with Ludwig and Iggy, at first I had wondered why Iggy was involved in the project until I remembered that while he wasn't big in the science department we was considered to be a mechanical genius and would likely prove instrumental in the reverse engineering of the wand's mechanical properties. For the most part Bowser didn't seem to be involving himself directly in the project; he seemed content to just stand back and observe as they worked which worked out all the better for me.

"Everything proceeding on schedule?" I asked as I walked up next to him.

"Indeed, the pipe network was unlocked two hours ago and by the time Wario arrives the gateway to the Stinit dimension should be operational."

"Great, now that everything is running so smoothly I was wondering if you could spare me for a few days."

"For?"

"There is a personal matter that has come up recently that I need to return home to take care of, it shouldn't take very long."

"This wouldn't have anything to do with Ludwig's discovery that you're a clone would it?"

"What'd he do, take out a full page ad in the newspaper?"

"There is little that goes on within this castle that I am not aware of."

If only he knew…

"I know it may seem like a trivial matter but it is something that's important to me."

"The truth of your origins is not a trivial matter. I estimate that Wario's attack on the Stinit army will not garner a response for at least a few days, you have until then. Is there anything you require for this excursion, items, manpower?"

Bowser's willingness to let not only undertake this trip but also his release of supplies to me was a surprise to say the least, seems he did take care of his own as it were. I thought about it for a moment then it hit me.

"I don't suppose you'd let Wendy come with me, I may need a little back-up for this outing."

"If it's muscle you need why not have Roy accompany you?"

"While I don't deny he can indeed provide muscle, Roy… is like a bull in a china shop, he lacks that certain subtly that may be required."

"True… very well if she is willing I will allow Wendy to accompany you on this mission."

"Also it has come to my attention that there are these pendants that can transport a person to safety if a hasty exit is required, could you spare a pair of these?"

"While I could they would do you little good, the pendants do not have the power to cross dimensional barriers."

"Well it was a thought anyway."

"What about Wendy's appearance? I think a Koopa in Times Square might raise a few eyebrows."

"She is capable of tending to that matter herself."

With that I turned to leave and once I had taken a few steps away I smiled broadly to myself. While what I had told Bowser about needing back-up and subtly wasn't a lie I had just omitted the fact I also wanted to spend more time with Wendy. Personally I think the only thing worse than being in love is having to hide it, it's bad enough that we were sneaking around behind her father's back, but to top it off we had to act like we hardly knew each other in public and frankly, it sucked. More importantly though I had a trip to get ready for and I was also excited to tell Wendy about the fact that she was coming with me. I knew that she had been worried about me going back to Earth by myself but she not only didn't have to worry, I'd managed to arrange a little more for us to spend together. Wendy and I actually met in the hallway on my way back to my quarters to get a few things and stopped to speak with her.

"Princess may I have a moment of your time?"

"Oh what the hell do you want?" she snapped, keeping up appearances.

"I'm going to be departing on a trip back to Earth shortly and your father has given me permission to ask if you would accompany me on this trip as backup."

For a moment I could see her eyes light up at the realization she would actually be coming with me, but then just as quickly as it had appeared she dropped back into character.

"What?! Earth, why the hell would I want to… Oh all right, if I have to. Now I'm going to have to disguise myself as a human, pfft as if a human would be lucky enough to look this good. When do we leave?"

"As soon as you're ready."

For the second time since my arrival here in the Mushroom Kingdom I found myself in the castle's pipe room only this time I had someone with me. Wedny despite her disguise still bore a lot of the features from her koopa heritage and while they did look a little different than what one would normally see on a person she was by no means ugly. For a disguise she had chosen shoulder length black hair, a simple but loose fitting red dress and matching high heels much like what she normally wore. The only disguise I need was to remove my shell and though the clothing looked a little odd compared to the Earth norm, we were heading for New York City, who'd notice?

"You ready sweety?" she asked

"As ready as I'll ever be I suppose, you got the pipe map for Earth?"

"Of course."

Apparently face plants in the dirt and I are getting to be fast friends because as we exited the pipe into an alley in New York I landed on the ground with a thud while Wendy just hunched down a little to absorb her landing before helping me up.

"How do you do that?"

"Years of practice Hon, years of practice."

It was about what you would imagine for an alley in New York, a hard pavement ground strewn with garbage along either side, a few beat up dumpers scattered about, and a smell that could split nose hairs. I was just glad the pipe was in an out of the way place because having a pipe burst through the ground and spit two people out in a highly populated area wouldn't have been my idea of an ideal entrance. As Wendy looked around I could already hear the sounds of the city in the background, though Wendy seemed to be a little frightened by everything that was going on.

"Wh-What's all that noise?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary, we've just landing in one of the biggest cities on Earth, there's a lot going on."

Hand in hand we walked to the entrance of the alley and we stood there for a little bit and I watched her with a slightly bemused look on my face as she gawked wide eyed at the city.

"Everything's so big and there are so many people… geez what do you humans do hump like cheep-cheeps?"

"Pretty much, the last census of Earth's population put it around seven to eight billion people, something like that."

"Unbelievable…"

"Shall we?" I motioned towards the city.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Wendy was all eyes walking down the streets of New York like a kid in a candy store she was soaking in every sight and sound around her, especially the store fronts and I spent the better part of an hour giving various explanations to 'What's that?' and 'How does that work?' I was actually getting a kick out of watching her dash from place to place looking at objects I disregarded as normal parts of life with incredible curiosity. Once the initial culture shock had worn off she walked up next to me and took my hand again.

"Where are we exactly?"

"My old stomping ground from when I was a kid, it's a place in New York called The Bronx, uh, East 180th St to be precise."

"That's an odd name."

"It city was named for the Bronx River which was in turn named after an old Earth explorer Jonas Bronck who lived some four hundred years ago."

"Oh, so where are we headed?"

"Back to where it all began for me, the orphanage I grew up in."

Now that I had actually thought about the fact that I would need money I quickly patted my chest then reached into my jacket and pulled out my wallet. Even though I hadn't needed it in the Mushroom Kingdom I had kept it with me more out of habit than anything else and a quick check showed that I still had most of my last paycheck with me with a little over three hundred dollars left.

"Hey Wendy, you wanna get something to eat, I'm getting a little puckish myself."

"Sure what'd you have in mind?"

"You like doughnuts?"

"What's a doughnut?"

"They're a type of sweets, you'll love'em."

We ended up at Dunkin' Donuts near the corner of E 183rd St and 3rd Ave and I had no idea exactly how big Wendy's sweet tooth was until she plowed though a dozen doughnuts and three cups of coffee by herself, I sure hoped that caffeine didn't get a koopa wired the way it did a human, though all the sugar would probably accomplish that regardless. I only had three doughnuts and half a cup of coffee myself and as we sat there, her with her hands on her stomach, she smiled broadly.

"Maybe this ain't such a bad place after all."

"Yeah, it does have its high points… hehe sugar."

"Yeah… sugar."

"Oh my god Alex, is that you?"

The voice that came from behind me caught me by surprise to the point I nearly jumped out of my chair as I looked around. With a broad grin a middle aged woman with long dirty blond hair, loose fitting beige slacks, and a ruffled white blouse looked down at me though a pair of gold rimmed bi-focals with her large brown eyes, it was Linda the dispatcher for Sycamore Cable.

"Linda? Hey funny meeting you here huh?"

"Funny meeting you at all. You disappear in the middle of a job without a notice or phone call and stay gone for three weeks? We even sent a couple of the guys from work by your place to see if you were alright and they said it looked like you hadn't been there in a while."

"Oh yeah that, uh I ended up getting another job with Wendy's father," I motioned to her, "I was going to turn in a notice at work but I ended up getting called away on an emergency."

"Oh, what's your father do sweetheart?"

"He's into land acquisition." Wendy just smiled.

"Everything's okay then Alex? We were getting worried about you at work."

"Oh yeah everything's fine, got a great position in my new job, nice paycheck, lots of benefits too, well aside from a minor plumbing problem, I even have a girlfriend now, Wendy uh… Cooper." I motioned to Wendy again.

"You're dating the boss's daughter; doesn't he think that might be a conflict of interest?"

"Oh yeah, well, uh he doesn't actually know yet."

"Oh Alex you rascal, well it was good seeing you I'm glad everything's okay, you take care of yourself now."

"I'll try." I smiled and waved as she walked off.

"And who was that?" Wendy arched a suspicious brow at me.

"Nothing like that if that's what you're thinking; she's one of the dispatchers for Sycamore Cable where I used to work, got my job assignments from her."

After our little doughnut binge we walked outside and after a few minutes I was able to hail a yellow cab and to my surprise when we got in the black leather interior was in one piece and the back seat didn't smell like urine… must have been a new cab. From the back of the grated seat divider I could see the driver's identification and the name read 'Akim Akkasadaba' I didn't if it was by choice or because it was the only job they could find, but there seemed to be an inordinate amount of Middle Eastern cab drivers in New York.

"Where to buddy?" he said in a heavy accent.

"The Saint James Orphanage."

There wasn't much conversation between Wendy and I as we drove along and I spent most of my time looking out of the window as I thought about my childhood in the orphanage and how much I had tried to get away from it. It had been five years since I had turned eighteen and been made to leave and I was glad to be out of there, I hated that place, I hated it with a passion. I was still remembering the childhood that I had loathed when Wendy reached over and placed her hand on my leg.

"Hon, you okay?"

"No I'm not okay!" then I stopped myself realizing I had snapped at Wendy, "Sorry, no I'm not okay, would you be okay in a situation like this?"

"No I guess not."

The car pulled up outside the old white stone building set atop a small grassy hill as we reached our destination a short time later and looking at the single wooden oak door in the front and then glancing about at the children moving past the windows I was flooded by memories of years of mistreatment, being laughed at by the other kids for my hair, and the constant bullying I had to face as a boy. Stepping out of the car I paid the driver and told him to keep the change and as my mood darkened I just growled under my breath.

"Let's get this shit over with."

As I walked up the steps to the front door the only thing on my mind was getting the information and getting the hell out of here because this was the last place I wanted to be and stepping inside the layout hadn't changed that much since I had left five years ago. The main room was a large open area with polished hardwood floors, plain white walls, and halls leading to the left and right both at the front and back of the room. Large round tables were set up in the room with plastic chair set around them for when the kids had their activity time and set back close to the right wall was an old black metal desk behind which a young woman with a pleasant was seated in the robes of a nun. When she saw me she stood up and walked over to us.

"Alexander, what a pleasant surprise I didn't think we'd see you back here again."

"Believe me Sister Tessa neither did I, I need to talk with Mother Grace I have some business with her."

"She should be in her office right down the hall, you remember the way?"

"Yes, thank you."

Boy did I ever remember the way, I can remember sitting in her office receiving innumerable lectures about all the things I was doing wrong and how I would go to hell if I didn't repent and change my ways, you know, the old fire and brimstone speeches. Her office was the last door on the left after taking an immediate left into the hallway from the main room and I'm glad it was so far away because I knew this meeting wasn't going to go well. There on the old polished wood door was a placard that read 'Mother Vivian Grace' and reaching up I knocked lightly on the door.

"Yes come in." a voice said.

The door swung open and I stepped into her office which was very sparsely furnished and not that large. The only things in the room were the large oaken desk with stacks of paperwork neatly arranging on top of it and an old rotary phone. Sitting in front of the desk were two plain wooden chairs and a steel grey three door filing cabinet in the corner. Mother grace was seated behind her desk with a scowl across her old wrinkled face, in the eighteen years I spent here I don't think I ever saw her smile.

"Alexander? This is most unexpected; can I help you with something?"

I didn't bother wasting time with pleasantries and just walked over to the filing cabinet and opened the top drawer to look through the files.

"Yeah I'm here for my file."

Almost immediately Mother Grace was on her feet and moving towards me to try and stop me from looking through the files. Before she was able to get to me Wendy intercepted her and actually snapped at her as if she were trying to bite her and then I could hear her growling.

"Demons, you consort with demons!" Mother Grace exclaimed.

Glancing over for a moment I noticed Wendy had backed Mother Grace into a corner with her teeth bared and it was then that I could see she hadn't disguised that part of herself and every last sharp koopa tooth was visible.

"With a body like that I do more than consort with'em."

Normally I would have pointed out that Wendy wasn't a demon and simply a different species, but I was enjoying watching Mother Grace hold the cross pendant on her neck out at Wendy like it would actually do something. When I couldn't find my file in the M section of the second drawer I walked over to where Mother Grace was and just glared.

"Where's my file old woman?"

"I'm not telling you anything demon child you'll burn in hell for this!" then made a cross sign over her chest.

With a quick glance at Wendy I winked and looked back at Mother Grace as I mumbled some gibberish under my breath as I held my hand up, apparently Wendy had caught the wink because soon my hand started to take on an appearance similar to a koopa claw and I grinned.

"You know nothing of Hell Mother Grace, but if you don't give me my file, I'll be more than happy to introduce you to the man himself, so how about it, hmm?"

By now her eyes were so wide I thought they were going to fall out of her head as she clutched at her cross pendant and looked at me like something that had just been spawned from the bowls of hell itself. It took her a moment to collect herself before pointing to her desk.

"T-Top drawer on t-t-the left. I was m-moving it t-t-to storage."

With a quick check of the top drawer I found my file and with that in hand I walked to the door and held my hand up triumphantly.

"Come my demon consort there is much work ahead of us!" I said in an almost theatrical manner.

It would seem that Mother Grace was so shaken be her encounter with the demoness Wendy that it took her a while just to leave her office as we left the orphanage without incident and walked in silence for a while as I read over my file before Wendy finally spoke up.

"Uh, what's a demon and who's the man?"

"Oh that," I actually had to chuckle to myself, "according to Christian theology Lucifer, the man, was once a servant of God, a deity many people believe to be the creator of Earth and the human race who became so proud of himself he rebelled against God and convinced many of God's other servants to follow him in his rebellion. He was eventually cast out of Heaven, that being God's home, and down here to Earth he's now considered the absolute pinnacle of evil and the servants of God that followed are now called demons."

"Wow, she thought I was all that?"

"Mmmhmm. Ah found it!" I said, tapping the folder with a finger, "I was dropped off at the orphanage by a man name Mortimer Gravaliski, there's our next clue."


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

If someone worked for a secret government agency, or was at least connected to them you'd think they wouldn't have their names listed in a phone book. As it turned out Mr. Gravalski didn't live that far from the orphanage and within an hour we were already pulling up to his house. Again paying the cab driver and telling him to keep the change we had come to an old red brick house with a black roof, stone chimney and wrap around porch and from the fact there was an old beat up black dodge neon in the front of the garage it was a pretty good bet that someone was home. I hurried to the door as the closer I got to my destination the more I wanted to know the truth behind my creation and knocked several times harder than I had actually meant to. In short order a middle aged balding man with grey streaked brown hair wearing an old worn tweed vest over a white shirt with black trousers and thick glasses answered the door.

"Mortimer Gravalski?"

"Yes, is there something…" then I saw it in his eyes, he recognized me, "Alexander?"

As small as Mortimer was in size it wasn't hard for me to grab him by the neck of his shirt and pull him up off the floor as I walked inside allowing Wendy to close the door behind us.

"Long time no see Morty, did you think you could just dump me off at that orphanage and forget the whole thing, you think I wouldn't eventually come looking, huh?"

"Please calm down Alex, I don't know anything about your parents I swear."

It was obvious to me then that Mortimer either didn't know the truth, or he didn't know I knew. It really didn't matter to me because either way I was going to get some answers out of this guy if I had to beat him senseless to do it and I was about to get started when I noticed Wendy out of the corner of my eye, she had wandered into the living room and seemed to be staring at something with intense interest.

"Wendy, what is it?" I asked with Morty still pinned against the wall.

"It's… you…"

It took me a moment to realize what she meant until I looked at the picture and saw Mortimer standing there with a fishing rod in hand and the young man standing next to him looked exactly like me, only older and he had blond hair instead of white.

"Who is that old man!"

"Uh uh it's, uh…"

"Don't lie to me old man, I know what I am!"

"Oh god, how did you find out?"

"That doesn't matter, who is he?!"

"Alright alright, he's my son!" he blurted out.

That little outburst shocked me to say the least and I just let Mortimer go slowly as I looked at him with an almost blank expression on my face. I was stunned by this revelation, by the fact that the man I was looking at wasn't just the man who had dropped me off at the orphanage all those years ago, but the father of the man I was cloned from, in a backhanded sort of way he was my father as well.

"Why… why would you clone your own son?"

"Because it was all that I had left."

"I don't follow."

"Have a seat, I'll explain." He motioned to a table in the middle of the room.

Now that I actually took the time to look at the house rather than focusing on Mortimer I could see it was a modest design with a homey atmosphere to it. The walls were painted a simple blue to accent the dark shag carpet and the living room we were standing in had an old brown leather sofa sitting against the left wall with a cedar door at its far end leading into another part of the house with a end table at the other end with a small lamp and phone sitting atop it. Against the right wall was an old style television housed in a massive wooden frame with rollers beneath it, the red vinyl recliner that seemed to clash with the rest of the room's design was seated against the far wall directly in front of us with an old style floor model lamp rising up next to it.

Wendy and I took a seat on the sofa while Mortimer situated himself in the recliner and then explained to us how his wife Donna had been pregnant with their only child whom they had also decided to name Alexander, and he also explained how the labor had been strenuous that Mrs. Gravalski had died shortly thereafter. You see the man I was cloned from, unlike me, would have been in his early forties by now. The term would have was applied here because almost twenty-four years ago the original Alexander was struck and killed by a drunk driver as he was walking home from work.

"Wait a minute, if you cloned me in the early eighties how did you overcome the problem of accelerated aging, I mean wasn't cloning technology in its infancy back then?"

"Yes it was, and I didn't overcome the problem, not intentionally. You see up to that point the laboratory I was working for at the time had never been able to successfully clone a human; in fact I wasn't sure I would be able to either. I suppose when I made you I overcame the problem of accelerated aging without even realizing it, hell at the time we didn't even know the first generation of clones would age faster than a normal human."

That was a comforting thought…

"Alright, and now for my next question, why did you dump me in that hell hole of an orphanage?"

"Because I was afraid my employers would find out what I had done, they were already suspicious and sniffing around. I knew if they discovered you that you'd be taken away from me and treated like a lab experiment."

"I was a lab experiment."

"Not to me you weren't, I know your childhood must have been difficult but I figured any childhood would be better than none at all."

"You never called, you never came to visit, why?"

"I couldn't risk it, they spent years watching me, monitoring my every move, the only thing I could do was send you a present for Christmas once when you were thirteen."

"Wait a minute, you mean you were the Secret Santa that sent me that Etch-A-Sketch? I loved that thing, I'd spend hours playing with it."

"Oooh I like that car, it has flashing lights on it."

Mortimer and I had been so engrossed in talking that we hadn't even noticed Wendy get up and walk over to one of the windows and not a split second after her observation we could see the lights in the living room.

"Damnit, Mother Grace must have called the police!"

"Why would she call the police?"

"How do you think I found you? Through my orphanage record."

"I thought those were confidential."

"They are, I had to scare the habit off a nun to get it. Come on Wendy it's time for us to get the hell out of here!"

We were already trying to beat a hasty retreat out the back door when Mortimer stopped us.

"I want to come with you, please."

"What?! Mortimer are you crazy, do you have any idea what you're asking? I can't even begin to explain my situation but it is far from normal, I don't even live here anymore."

"I don't have anything left here anymore, my wife and son are dead and I live on a pension that I can barely make ends meet with, please."

I could see by the look in his eyes that more than anything Mortimer didn't want to part company with me. It was hard enough to lose your loved ones, but then to see someone who looked like your own child in almost every respect; it would have been almost like losing that child for the second time. Struck by indecision for a moment I just sighed and waved my hand.

"Come on let's go."

The three of us ducked out the back door and dashing through a back yard surround by a high wooden fence and as I threw the gate open we were greeted by two more police cars and the sound of several guns being cocked.

"Freeze! Put your hands in the air!"

Mortimer and I did as we were instructed and Wendy looked over at the both of us then followed suit, though I could tell by the look on her face that she was quite pissed.

"So much for a quick vacation lover boy." She growled.

"All I did was scare a nun and steal a file, by the way they're acting you'd think I'd robbed a bank or something."

The room I was sitting in was about what you'd imagine for a police interrogation room, a single steel table with a metal chair which I happened to be seated in at the time, and two other chairs opposite me facing away from the giant one way mirror. At this point in time I had a police detective in an old grey three piece suit with a red tie staring down at me from where he had leaned over and placed his hands on the table.

"You're one of those sickos that gets off on scaring old ladies aren't you?"

I had to resist the urge to laugh as he spoke, but not in reference to his statement, it was the fact he was so fat he had jowls that wobbled when he spoke. Unlike Mortimer who had just lost the hair on the top of his head this guy was completely bald and I suddenly got had the picture of a barking bulldog flash through my mind, an image that was furthered by his close set eyes and a thick upturned nose.

"You're a real piece of work you know that, had that poor nun so scared out of her mind she was crying and going on about you consorting with demons or something crap like that."

"So I scared a nun and stole a file, big deal, slap me with a fine and let me out of here."

"What, you think we go to all this trouble for slap on the wrist offenses son? You and your little girlfriend are looking at some serious time."

"Serious time for what?"

"Terroristic threats."

"What?!" I exclaimed, coming up out of my seat, "I didn't make terroristic threats against her, you're out of your mind!"

"Oh then you didn't threaten to personally introduce her to the devil? I asked the D.A. and as far fetched as something like that sounds it still constitutes a threat against her life and lord knows you terrorized that poor woman enough."

"This is insane, all I wanted was my adoption record, what's far fetched is this ridiculous law that's so vague you can slap terroristic threats on anything or anyone you don't like, this is bullshit and you know it! I didn't hurt anybody, I didn't steal any money, all I wanted to do was find my parents!"

For a moment there I thought the detective and I were about to go ten round as we stood nose to nose staring each other down when a younger dark haired man opened the door and leaned in.

"Hey Dave, kid's lawyer is here."

Lawyer? I didn't even have a lawyer let alone make a phone call yet, who the hell- you have got to be kidding me. My thoughts came to a screeching halt as my 'lawyer' walked into the room. Despite the fact his hair was now black instead of blue the style along with his facial features gave him away the moment he stepped through the door.

"Ludwig von Kries, attorney at law, I'm here to represent my client." He held a card out to the detective.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Ludwig who was dressed in a hideous green pen strip suit and still of considerable height and girth, the only Koopaling who was as tall as I was save for Iggy who was actually a little taller, sat down next to me. I was about to say something when he reached over and grabbed the neck of my shirt and jerked me over towards him after asking for some privacy with his client. I could tell by the expression on his face that this was the last place he wanted to be, and I was the last person he wanted to see.

"Gee Ludwig, glad to see you too."

"Shut up you little shit! If it weren't for the fact you're working for my dad I'd snap your neck right here."

"Okay I know we've not exactly been friends up to now but what the hell crawled up your shell and died."

"What crawled up…" he finally let go of my shirt and made do with pointing at me, "You did Romeo, not only do you take off on some personal jaunt in the middle of a war you take my sister into a dimension where who knows what could happen to her. You'd best be glad dad needs to focus on the war otherwise I'd spill the beans about you two the second we got home!"

"Speaking of which how'd you find us, and how are we getting out of here?"

"You really think I'd let someone run off with my sister without having a way to keep track of her? As for getting out of here you just leave that part to me. Did these humans get their hands on the pipe network map?"

"As far as I know it's still in Wendy's shell."

Our little moment of privacy was interrupted by the sound of gunfire and people screaming and we just looked at each other.

"Wendy!" we said at the same time.

Before I could even say anything else Ludwig was already on his feet and in Koopa mode slamming the table out of the way and not even bothering to open the door he just raised his hands and slammed then into it taking said door out of the wall frame and all as it mowed down the detectives that were standing outside. I quickly dashed out of the room behind him and saw a number of police officers firing into an interrogation room as a detective lay there on the floor clutching a blood soaked arm. Ludwig who had stepped into the hall didn't waste any time in losing his temper either.

"That's my sister you're shooting at!" he roared.

Much to my surprise he leaned forward and belched a sheet of fire much like something you would see his father do and with a flash the detective on the floor was the only one left. Again smashing the door to an interrogation room open he looked into the adjoining room where Wendy peeked out from behind a table and I could see she didn't have her disguise.

"Ludwig?" she asked.

"Yeah, let's go."

"Wendy, what happened to your disguise?" I asked.

"I tried to keep it up as long as I could but I didn't count on not being able to rest somewhere before we left."

We were about to get started in making our escape plans when I saw Mortimer sitting in another room trying to figure out what was going on, I settled on just opening the door myself.

"Come on Morty let's go!" I said.

Before even making it out the door he took one look at Ludwig and started to do an about face when I grabbed him by the shirt.

"They're friends, let's go," then looked over, "Ludwig, how we getting' home?"

"There's a warp pipe about two blocks from here, it has an unanchored exit but we don't have much choice, we're about to have the whole damn police force on our ass."

"What's an unanchored exit?" I asked Wendy

"It means we could end up anywhere in Mushroom World, random exit"

"Not now dad." I held a finger up to Mortimer who was listening in on the conversation.

Now I even took myself by surprise with that one, did I just call him dad? From the smile on his face I guess I did. By this time Ludwig was doing his own version of a Roy Special by thundering through the police station and destroying and/or burning anything that looked even remotely dangerous, it shuddered to make me think what Roy would be like when he got to be this age. The other thing I noticed was it seemed that Ludwig's scales were hard enough that the bullets from the remaining police officers were ricocheting off of him in every direction. As he smashed his way through the front door and the four of us took off down the road as fast as we could it occurred to me that this must have been one hell of a scene to bystanders in the city, two koopas storming through The Bronx with two humans in tow, Ludwig having dropped his own disguise by now, had opted to bring up the rear in order to deflect anymore possible gunfire and following his directions we soon ended up in a dead end alley.

"It's a dead end, we're trapped!" Mortimer said.

"Don't count on it." I said

Ludwig who had taken the lead once again took a medallion from around his neck and holding it out in front of him I could see small waves of energy begin to emanate from his hand and flow into it and soon it was visibly glowing, a few seconds later a large green pipe broke through ground sending chunks of cement and debris in every direction as it kicked up a cloud of dust. Wendy was already making her way into the pipe when I was stopped by a large arm.

"Who's the old guy?"

"My father, we're not leaving without him."

Despite the scowl this brought to Ludwig's face as he looked at Mortimer he didn't actually say anything more on the subject, he just grunted a little and made a hasty retreat. Mortimer had his hand up like he was going to say something but already being able to hear the sounds of footsteps coming quickly in our direction I just grabbed him by the back of the shirt and pants, shoved him in, and was quick to follow myself.

The last to exit the pipe I dropped out of the ceiling of a room and managed to actually land on my feet this time and with some arm waving and quick balance adjustments I managed to stay that way. I was about to congratulate myself when I noticed the look Wendy and Ludwig's face and I was about to ask what the problem was when Wendy blurted out,

"We're in Princess Peach's Castle!"

"Crap…" was all I managed.

Before we even had time to react the door flew open and close to two dozen mushroom guards holding spears came charging in looking like they were about ready to try and skewer us, and just behind them came a young woman in a pink dress with blond hair and a crown.

"Would you kindly explain what you're doing in my bedroom?"

I had just opened my mouth to say something when after getting a good look at her what I said was not what I had intended to say.

"Daaaayum she cute."

This little mental slip resulted in an immediate backhand to the side of my head and when I looked over I saw Wendy and this time she was growling at me!

"Not as cute as you of course." I grinned sheepishly.

"It's a Koopa ambush, we're under attack!" one of the mushroom guards said.

In light of the fact Ludwig hadn't said anything and actually looked like he was about to go one the offensive I quickly stepped between them in hopes of stopping a fight from breaking out, the last thing we needed right now was to take on the whole mushroom… kingdom… now it was my turn to not get a word in as Mario came rushing into the room fireball in hand with another figure in green right behind him. Despite the fact he was taller and skinnier the near identical outfits meant it could only be Luigi.

"Whoa whoa whoa people let's take it easy there's no ambush here in fact we ended up here completely by accident, honest." I said holding my hands out towards both groups.

"Koopa honesty, that's a good one." A guard snorted.

"Look we just came back from Earth in a hurry and had to take a pipe with an unanchored exit, nobody's attacking anybody."

"Yeah we've heard-"

"Nobody's talking to you midget!" I snapped at the guard.

Straightening myself up to face Princess Peach I sighed and held my arms in front of me slightly as I laid it out on the line for her.

"Look I know there's been some bad stuff going on between us lately and that you have no reason to trust us, but it's the truth. We just came back from Earth in such a hurry we had to take a pipe with an unanchored exit. If you must know the reason I went back was to deal with a personal matter and ended up bringing my father back with me. Seriously, if you were going to launch a surprise attack against someone would you bring 'him' with you?" I motioned to Mortimer.

Princess Peach looked at our little group for a moment, and even Mario and Luigi seemed to drop out of their battle ready stance to consider what I had said, there was a moment of awkward silence before she finally spoke up again.

"Even if I wanted to let you go I couldn't because there's still the matter of all the damage you caused to the kingdom a few days ago. I cannot in good conscience simply allow those responsible for such an act to walk away."

"There's no those involved here your majesty, I and I alone was acting on direct orders from King Koopa, my three friends had nothing to do with it."

This in itself was a lie considering Ludwig had provided me with the map and locations for the attacks but right at this point in time I was more concerned about getting Bowser's two kids and my father out of hot water than I was saving my own skin.

"Then as we are unable to bring Bowser to justice you claim full responsibility for these acts?"

"Yes but there are still some matters that I have to attend to in the Dark Lands that do not concern your kingdom, if you wish me to make amends for my attacks I won't contest that, but I just can't do it right now, is there any way I can convince you to let us return home until these matters are taken care of?"

"It is true that Koopa honesty bears little weight around here, so if you wish to return later to make amends for what you've done I'll need an act of good faith."

"Such as?"

"Such as one of you remaining here until your return."

"You want a hostage?"

"Not a hostage, an act of good faith. The person that stays behind will not be harmed or mistreated in anyway, though they will not be allowed to leave the grounds they will be treated as a guest here, on this you have my word."

Now this was a real fix that we were in, not only did I have Ludwig wanting to twist my head off, now I was facing off against the princess of the Mushroom Kingdom on her own terms who wanted an act of 'good faith' AND the whole Stinit war to deal with when I got back. The term no rest for the wicked was really starting to play out here.

"I'll stay…"

Glancing behind me to see who had said that I saw Mortimer who up until now hadn't said anything peering out from behind Ludwig cautiously.

"What? No way, not you."

"Come on Alex think about it, I'm the only one not really needed right now, plus I'm the least threatening of the four of us, it's the logical choice."

As much as I wanted to try and argue the point with him he was right, Mortimer wasn't needed in the Dark Lands and his appearance alone made him look as threatening as a sack of wet hair. This is what really pissed me off, I had just met the man that was the closest thing to a father I'd ever have and now I had to leave him in the hands of our enemies. Finally realizing the inescapable logic of what he had said I sighed to myself before turned back to Princess Peach.

"Alright, Mortimer will remain here as our act of good faith until I return, agreed?"

"Agreed." Peach nodded.

Wendy, Ludwig and I wasted no time making our way out of the castle and as we were walking down the steps he looked over at me.

"That was disgustingly diplomatic of you."

"It got our asses out of the hot seat didn't it?" I growled.

Our return to Castle Koopa was neither glorious nor even really noticed for that matter, by the time we got back the castle was on high alert with guards running in every direction imaginable. When Ludwig stopped one of them to find out what was going on we learned that not only was Wario's little vacation to the Stinit realm a stunning success, he had returned looking like hell the Stinit army hot on his heels. My mind was set on seeking out Bowser to find out if there was anything he needed me to do to help prepare for the coming battle when Ludwig just slapped me on the shoulder and pointed into the distance.

Even over the castle walls I could see hundreds of portal opening in the distance and though I could only see the airship they were bringing in over the top of the wall I could hear the sound of thousands on feet marching in a lockstep formation as they approached the castle, then as I listened I could again hear the same march coming from behind the castle as well. By the time I made my way up the wall the sight before me was something that truly gave me pause. On the field below the legions of King Koopa were massed to face our enemy, row upon row of stiffly organized soldiers were ready to do battle for their homeland and it seems Bowser was no hilltop commander either as he himself stood at the forefront of his legions.

Once the two armies had come to a halt I stood there looking at them. I think the most disturbing thing to me were the Stinit airships that looked like little more shards of pointed black metal with jagged spires piercing out in every direction with no visible signs of propulsion. Unlike our previous encounters the Stinit weren't playing around, they had brought tanks, airships, mechanized soldiers, artillery, this time they meant business, not that Bowser was playing either. Until this moment when I saw the two armies prepare to face off I never realized how vast the Koopa Army was. Hammer Brothers, Buzzy Beetles, Goombas, Turtles, Lakitu, Sniff-its, and dozens of other Koopa species were prepared to follow their leader on the field of battle backed by their own heavy infantry and artillery.

The two armies stood there with the air around them so quiet you could here a pin drop. First came the roar from Bowser so loud I could hear him as though he were standing right next to me, then came the Koopa Army who's thunderous yell filled the skies from one end to the other and as slowly as it had begun… both sides surged forward like tidal waves rushing to meet one another…


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Have you ever watched those Hollywood action movies where the suave and dashing hero rides off to take part in a glorious battle, well I personally tell you that's nothing but bullshit, Hollywood glitz and glamour designed to sell tickets. What is war like you ask what is it really like? It's an affront to the very meaning of life, there are no grand heroes who save the day, no dramatic speeches or catchy one liners like 'I'll be back' because chances are you won't, there's only blood, fighting, death, and destruction. I mean my god, there were days I could remember looking out over the walls of the castle and not being able to see the ground for the bodies that were covering it! Detailing every battle over the course of the following month would be too arduous a task here but there are some things I would feel remiss not to mention.

The first is the battle strategy of the Stinit, where as King Koopa relies on well trained and hardened troops to make up the core of his army the Stinit battle strategy is to try and overwhelm their opponent with sheer numbers. The other thing we learned when Ludwig studied the corpse of a Stinit soldier in fine detail is that he was a clone, in fact almost every soldier we killed was clone. Apparently the Stinit supplemented the losses to their armies through mass cloning technology, something which in itself presented the problem of possibly limitless numbers of attackers.

The other problem that presented itself was actually being able to strike back at the Stinits in their home dimension. After Wario's attack which drew them here in the first place they did something to the portals that stopped us from being able to reopen the one we had created, we could create the portal on this side, but something was stopping it from forming on the other end and any attempts to enter their dimension now would be a rather gruesome one way trip for the traveler. Ludwig and Iggy had been working around the clock to try and find a way to reopen the portal but so far they hadn't made much progress.

The other thing I found to be disturbing was the lack of concern for their own troops that the enemy had shown, on more than one occasion they had bombed, shot, stabbed, or otherwise injured their own just to get at the Koopa Troops, their ruthlessness was unbelievable even by Koopa standards.

You ever heard the saying war is hell? Take it from someone who's been there, hell doesn't even compare to war. No matter how many Stinit we killed, no matter how many of our soldiers fell, they just kept coming, and coming, and coming like a never ending wave of death. I can remember nights where Wendy and I having snuck into one another's bedroom would just sit there holding each other so we could feel the warmth of the others touch and be reminded we were still alive, this had become more than war, this was a nightmare.

So there I sat alone in my room feeling as though all the life had drained out of me, weary from all the relentless fighting, wondering how a single person's mind could possibly endure this much carnage when the last thing I ever expected happened. There in the confines of my bedroom a portal, much like the ones used by Stinit, opened and a single robed figure with his hood drawn back stepped through supporting himself on a long walking stick. Even though he looked different from the others in the fact that he was taller than the rest, almost Wendy's height with thin grey strands of hair and a scraggy beard there was no mistaking the fact that he was a Stinit, with his oversized head, wide mouth, and close set eyes. Before I even knew what I was doing I was up on my feet ready to strike, but then something stopped me, something that I never expected him to do… he smiled.

"You've got about five second to explain what you're doing here old man, otherwise I start breaking things… on you."

"Calm down young man I didn't come here to fight, in fact I came here to help."

"Help, why the hell would you want to help your enemies?"

"Because you're not my enemies and those things you've been fighting are not my people, at least not anymore."

"Then tell me why you're here?"

"As I said before I came to help, tell me, do you know anything of the creatures that you're fighting?"

"Aside from they fact they're ruthless, relentless, and their numbers seem to be without end… no."

"Then have a seat and I'll tell you a story, a story that will not only enlighten you about those that you face, but also explain my presence here."

Retaking my seat on the bed I just looked at this old man with an intense curiosity, not only because of what he had said, but because the closer I looked at him the more I could see that there was more to his appearance than just that of a Stinit, but I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was. The old man made do with taking a seat on the floor and crossing his legs before placing his walking stick on his lap.

"As I said once before, the people, the things that you are fighting now are not my people; the Stinit race itself has been dead for more than two thousand years, the end result of natural selection. You see from time to time nature will decide that a race has run its course and it is time for them to just… fade away, much as the fate of the Stinits should have been long, long ago. In their prime the Stinit were a proud and mighty people with an empire than spanned the stars, fleets of ships that would blot out the sun, and technology that most could only dream of, in our prime we were magnificent, and then it began, slowly at first, so slowly in fact that no one noticed it until it was almost too late. It would seem that nature had decided our time had come and with each new generation that was born their numbers grew smaller and smaller until we lost the ability to reproduce at all and there were not but a handful of survivors left."

"That would explain all the clones."

"Yes, that is how our people survived. We began to clone ourselves, over, and over, and over again until all that was left is this twisted visage you see sitting here before you today. We weren't always like this you know, these twisted little mannequins. We were once a proud people, strong of body and mind, not that different from you. Over the generations as we continued to clone ourselves it began taking its toll on us both mentally and physically and as time moved on my people, or what was left of them, were slowly driven mad until they became these abominations whose only desire was to destroy all life."

"How is it that you're here talking to me now then, why aren't you as crazy as the rest of them?"

"I would like to think it's so that I can bring an end to all of this and help lay to rest a people that should have died a long time ago."

"And just how do you propose to do that?"

"With this." He said holding out a small crystal in his hand.

"Go on…"

"It's a weapon I've spent the last three generations developing, a weapon that when used will destroy the connections between the Stinit dimension and any other dimension out there, it will essentially seal their dimension… forever. On this crystal is everything you will need to build and operate the device."

"Are you seriously going to give the people I work for something of that magnitude, do you know what they're like?"

"Yes I am well aware of what King Koopa and his ilk are like, but I would rather take this chance than allow these things to continue their rampage across the dimensions."

"I thought you said this would bring an end to them, not just lock them up and throw away the key."

"It will, you see the Stinit's ability to clone themselves has been lost for almost one hundred generations now, the effects of endless cloning have finally taken their toll. In order to survive now they have to find new material, fresh DNA to infuse into theirs or else they'll die. By sealing them into their own dimension and onto a world with no more viable material, this will be our last generation."

"One world, what happened to the mighty empire that spanned the stars?"

"Lost ages ago, when our people began to fade, followed by generations of mass cloning we slowly lost the knowledge that allowed us to travel the stars, that is why we now travel the dimensions."

"Alright, last question, why not just do this yourself?"

"Because I am old, unable to do this on my own, and there is no one else among my people that can see what we have become anymore."

With some effort, obviously the result of his advanced age, the old man takes hold of his cane and makes it to his feet before walking over to where I sat, placing the crystal in my hand.

"End this please."

"Where will you go?"

"I've been cloned so many times I've lost count, I'm tired…"

There in my hand I stared at the crystal wondering if the Koopas even had the ability to extract information for a device like this, but more than anything I was glad I would be able to help bring this damned war to an end, I just prayed that by giving Bowser something like this I wasn't ending one war just to start another. It occurred to me as I sat there that I had never even asked the old man his name.

"Say old timer you never told me your… name…"

As quietly as he had appeared he disappeared, quite possibly the last sane member of a once mighty race… and I never even knew his name.

I had just finished delivering the crystal to Ludwig along with the details of what was on the crystal when I had decided to head back to my room to try to get some rest only to be stopped en route by a rather frantic Koopa Turtle.

"Alex, Bowser sent… me to summon you…" he leaned over trying to catch his breath.

"Very well, tell him I'll report as requested shortly."

"Now."

"What?"

"Bowser said now, he found out… he found out about… you and Wendy."

And here we go, out of the frying pan and into the meat grinder. I knew this day would come and it was something I wasn't looking forward to but I knew I would have to square off against him eventually. Resigning myself to this confrontation I let out another sigh, this was becoming a regular habit for me.

"Where?"

"Throne room."

I was really starting to hate this damn job, it was just one insane series of events that seem to come at me non-stop, just when I was finishing up with one emergency another came screaming at me in one form or another. Personally more than anything I think it was the lack of sleep, it's much easier to handle chaos and insanity once you've had a good night's sleep. Assuming I survived the next few minutes I would have to make it a point to schedule all my emergencies around a steady sleeping schedule… yeah like that's gonna happen, nice idea though. Upon arriving in the throne room I could see that Wendy had already beaten me here and was pleading with her father.

"No daddy don't, please wait, don't do this!"

Without even so much as answering her he rose he rose from his large stone throne which was seated atop a large half circle dais in the back of the room and just pushed her aside with his hand before he began making his way down towards me. Even when he wasn't 'storming' around the castle you could still hear his footfalls as he walked and he was almost on top of me before I had managed to scrap up enough courage to hold my head up and face him. I won't lie I wasn't afraid, I was scared shitless. He leaned down so that our faces were level and let out a low growl as he narrowed his eyes.

"Did you think you could just come into my home and do as you please with my daughter, a koopa princess, and not face any consequences?"

"Um well, uh you see, I…"

"Pathetic little human, you are not worthy of my child, this little fling of yours is over now get out of my sight."

At first I was scared, but then with that last line I got pissed, real pissed.

"What the hell do you mean I'm not worthy? What, I'm worthy enough to do your dirty work, terrorize your enemies, and play errand boy for you every hour of the day but now all of a sudden when you find out your daughter and I are an item I'm not worthy?!"

Bowser had covered about half the distance back to his throne when he turned slightly to look over his shoulder and spoke in a low growl that was menacing enough to make me actually take a step back.

"I said get out of my sight human."

I was still trying to figure out what to say or do next when I looked to the throne and saw Wendy sitting there next it on the verge of tears and as she looked my way I realized I was about to lose the only thing in this whole damned kingdom that I cared about. I knew what I had to do, and I knew what it would likely cost me too.

"You know what you overgrown lizard, I don't give a DAMN what you think and further more FUCK YOU! I made Wendy a promise to be there for her and I don't care what gets in my way, Stinit, plumber, koopa, or even you. You want me to stop seeing Wendy then why don't you haul that shell of yours over here and make me!"

After I finished that little tirade Wendy along with the few other koopas scattered about the throne room all looked at me like I had just lost my damn mind, and I wasn't entirely sure I hadn't, but either way I wasn't going to go down without a fight. For a time I think Bowser just stood there looking at me more out of surprise over what I had just said, although a moment later when he turned to face me and flexed his hands into fists hard enough to make his knuckles crack I realized something else too. My mouth had just written a check my ass couldn't cash.

"Oh dear god I'm gonna die…" I mumbled to myself.

Leaning forward in a slow manner he spread his arms out to the side and gave a roar not all that different than from when he had lead the charge against the Stinit invasion and came thundering straight at me… exit hero stage left. That's not to say that I turned tail and ran because I didn't, what I did was cut a sharp left and start running around the throne room while trying to figure out how the hell I was going to beat this monster of a Koopa that was now intent on killing me. I quickly came to a screeching halt to avoid a jet of fire spit in my direction then as Bowser came charging at me once again I launched an attack of my own, is was crazy, stupid, and desperate but it was all I had.

With Bowser bearing down on me I ran at him as fast as I could ducking at the last second and slid between his legs before making a fast recovery and started using the spikes on his shell to climb his back. Once I had managed to straddle his neck between his head and his shell and grabbing hold of one of his horns to steady myself I used my free hand to punch him in the side of the head as hard and fast as I could. After a few blows I heard an audible cracking sound though it wasn't until I hit him again that I realized that was the sound of my knuckle breaking. I also apparently underestimated how limber Bowser was because it didn't take him long to reach up, grab hold of me and hurl me across the room like a hacky sack. I plowed into the wall with enough force to cause several stress fractures and would have more than likely broken my back if I hadn't been wearing my own shell at the time.

"Close quarter combat with King Koopa, brilliant." I mumbled laying there on the floor.

I had just made it to my feet when Bowser overtook me again and glancing up in surprise as to how something that big could move so fast I didn't have time to react before he swung his arm at me and I again took the lead role in the unfolding drama of Alex the rag doll. This time I flew across the room and smashed through the back of Bowser's throne before coming to rest in pile of rubble on the floor. Wendy who was close by ran to where I was and leaned over me.

"Y-you're doing great babe, really."

"Doing great?" I coughed, "He's kicking my ass seven ways into next year."

For a moment Wendy looked around quickly as if trying to make sure no one was looking before reaching into her shell. She took something out that looked almost like a mushroom though I didn't get a good look at it before she slipped it into my mouth.

"Maybe that'll help."

It took me a moment to stagger to me feet mostly because I wasn't sure what Wendy had given me but I definitely did not feel normal. The sensation was not only weird but at first I thought Bowser was getting shorter until I realized that in fact I was getting taller, even though I still wasn't as tall as he was there was now only half a head's difference between us instead of the normal head and a half. The other thing I noticed immediately is that I was a lot more muscular than normal, I didn't know what the mushroom had done, but I liked it, my knuckle even felt better. Again Bowser was stalking towards me but this time I took the offensive and dashing over the throne I charged him head on and decided to use my advantage, speed.

While no one can deny that Bowser is big, though, and powerful, the one thing he lacks is speed. When he drew back to hit me I lunged at him and hit him square in the jaw for all I was worth and to my surprise he actually staggered backwards for a step so I continued to press my advantage with a flurry of blows. I was already in considerable pain from being bounced off a wall and through a throne made out of stone so I decided to give it all I was worth because I knew I would wear out sooner or later, unfortunately it turned out to be sooner rather than later. With his arms held up to defend himself I didn't realize until it was to late that the ripple in the muscles was him drawing his strength in as they tightened.

"ENOUGH!" he yelled.

With that he spun from his position of being turned slight aside and hammered me in the chest with both of his firsts with such force that this time I didn't bounce off the wall, I made a new damn door and the next thing I knew I was laying in the next room over covered in dust and debris. I knew Bowser would be coming soon so I tried to force myself up only to be overwhelmed by a burning and blinding pain as it shot through my body and that's when I realized that a number of my bones were broken and from the feel of it more than once. The battle was over and again I had lost, I seemed to making a bad habit of doing that lately, though when Bowser stepped through the wall and placed his foot on my chest I had the funny feeling I wouldn't have the chance to change that in the future.

"Give up."

"Hell no." I said coughing up blood in the process.

Again he stepped on my chest and at this point I was started to see bright flashes of light, white spots and I had to concentrate just to stay conscious.

"Give… up!"

"No, if I gave up it would be the same as running out on Wendy, that's not gonna happen!"

"This is your last chance boy, give up or die."

"If you're going to kill me then just get it over with and stop using me for a door mat already, I told you I'm not giving up."

"You would actually die for her?"

"Yes I would."

For a time he just stood there looking down at me before slowly removing his foot.

"Of all of the would-be suitors who have ever come calling for my daughter you are the only one willing to stand up for her in the face of any danger, even if that danger meant death." With that he turned and walked away.

"What? You mean this was a test?! God! What ever happened to one from column A and two from column B?!"

Before leaving the room he stopped briefly and looked up.

"And if you ever talk to me like that again I will kill you."

"Loud and clear boss." At this point I didn't even have the strength to salute.

Waiting until Bowser had left the room Wendy came running over to me again and threw her arms around me, something I would have enjoyed if she hadn't been squeezing broken ribs at the time.

"Wendy honey, ribs broken, pain." I wheezed.

"Oh no I'm sorry!" she quickly let go, "You meant what you said, you'd really die for me?"

"Of course I meant it; I don't normally make it a habit of pissing off things that are capable of killing me for no apparent reason, now if you don't mind would you please call a doctor? I'm going to pass out now."

And I did just that.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Against the doctor's advice I left the infirmary after only two days when I heard that Ludwig had decoded the information on the crystal and was already in the process of constructing the weapon that would seal the Stinit in their home dimension, we were down to the final stretch and I wanted to be there when it happened, I knew the science lab in the castle is where he would be and so I didn't waste any time in making my way there. When I arrived the lab definitely looked a lot different than it had when they had been reverse engineering the Stinit wand, instead of several rows of neatly lined tables with all sorts of scientific equipment scattered over top of them the room was filled with heavy machinery. The tables were gone and had been replaced by what looked like machinery for the fabrication of materials, but not like anything I had ever seen before, and the only reason I could guess at this was do to Iggy currently sitting in front of one of these machines working a part of some sort. I still wasn't sure exactly what he was doing but from the look of it he was fine tuning something, I also noticed several other Koopa Turtles here working as well though from the look of it they were only fabricating basic materials like sheets of metal and basic parts, the other thing I noticed was that Ludwig was nowhere in sight.

"Hey Iggy, you seen Ludwig?" I asked, walking up next to him.

Pausing from his work and pulling a pair of safety goggles up onto his forehead he looked around for a moment obviously so into his work he hadn't noticed Ludwig's disappearance either.

"He's probably in Nexus One."

"Nexus what?"

Hopping down from his seat Iggy walked through a few rows of large machines until he came to a large screen mounted on the back wall with several control panels situated directly beneath it.

"I thought this was the science lab." I commented.

"Yeah well it also doubles as a workshop for large scale projects like this."

Upon closer inspection of the monitor I saw a bank of smaller monitors around it and oddly they were all displaying charts and readouts for the same thing, but the question is what.

"Iggy, is that an energy output chart?"

"Yep." He responded working some of the controls.

"For what? If I'm looking at this right the output is peaking on this chart."

"Hehe, wait till you see this, it's a trip."

After tapping a few more buttons a small portal opened a few feet away from me and Iggy turned holding his hands in the same direction.

"Next stop, Nexus One."

Normally I would have been suspicious of any portals one of the Koopalings ushered me towards but Iggy seemed to be more concerned about his mechanical designs and other inventions than he was in being devious or cruel, it's not to say that he wasn't like that, just not so much as others. When I stepped through the portal what I saw before me was unlike anything I had ever seen or even imagined for that matter. The place to which the portal had taken me was a place that was so simple in appearance that it's almost had to describe, there was nothing. Well nothing aside from the massive sphere of energy a few hundred yards on front of me.

When I glanced around all I saw was nothingness, darkness in every direction I turned, I couldn't even see the ground I was standing on even though my feet could feel it under me. The massive sphere of energy that hung in the air in front of me was a brilliant white in color and from time to time a small stream of energy would erupt in a seemingly random direction almost like a small solar flare before it returned to normal. I think the oddest part was if you stood still enough and listened you could just hear this small rumbling sound in the background.

"What are you doing here?"

The voice came from behind me and I recognized it at once, it was Ludwig who actually seemed more curious than annoyed as to my presence here in Nexus One.

"I… I was looking for you, good god Ludwig what is this place?" I asked, turning to face him.

"I call it Nexus One, welcome to the heart of the pipe network Alex."

"The heart… you mean this is responsible for pipe travel, what is it?"

"It's the central distribution hub that controls all travel into and out of the pipes both here in Mushroom World and even to lands beyond, like Earth for instance."

"How?"

"I have no idea."

Now that was something I never thought I'd hear Ludwig say, in the short time I had known him this Koopaling seemed to know something about everything and even when he didn't he usually knew enough about the subject to make a sensible guesstimate about the matter at hand.

"Okay, what do you know?"

"I know that the hub is responsible for maintaining, operating, and controlling the pipe network and the various connections that link the pipes. I also now know that the pipe network within Mushroom World in fact only accounts for about thirteen percent of the stable, established network and that there are hundreds, if not thousands of pipes leading to places I can't even begin to imagine."

As I continued to watch I noticed there seemed to be small but constant ripples of energy moving over the surface of the sphere and that from time to time they would spike for a moment before dying down again.

"What was that?" I asked.

"Random pipe."

"Random pipe? How's that work?"

"Well from what I've been able to tell about Nexus One is that aside from the stable pipe network that exists the hub seems to expel short lived pipes at random locations which is probably how you managed to go from under a house to Wendy's bedroom."

"How does the nexus establish a stable connection?"

"It doesn't."

"Say what?"

"Just that, it doesn't. I discovered Nexus One about three months ago and I've been studying it in my free time ever since, from what I've been able to learn thus far Nexus One doesn't naturally form stable connection."

"Then that would mean that the existing network is an artificial construct, which would in turn lead to who, and how."

"Exactly, but another question to throw into the fray is when. I took some metal shavings from a pipe recently and carbon dated them, the test results indicated the pipe was over three thousand years old."

"How is that possible? Wouldn't the pipe have rusted away by then or something?"

"No, the energy from Nexus one keeps the pipes from succumbing to the elements, they can still be destroyed by any number of means mind you, just not through natural deterioration."

"This is incredible, how much power is this place producing?"

"That's another mystery but only due to the limitations of my instruments, every time I try to measure the power output here my equipment peaks instantly but never the less I would estimate it to be beyond anything I've ever encountered before, after all, you think that's ground you're standing on?"

"Now that you mention it, what am I standing on?"

"Pure force, Nexus One is generating so much energy that the area directly below it for several hundred miles is able to manifest a physical resistance to anything that touches it. Not only that it also generates energy in every field that I know of, electric, electromagnetic, infra-red, x-ray, you name it it's there."

"Isn't that dangerous, to us I mean."

"The types of energy that would be considered dangerous to organic life forms aren't produced in large enough quantities to be considered dangerous unless you camp out here for about a solid week."

"If it's producing that much energy the potential for harnessing it could be almost limitless."

"Yeah and you'd have to be crazy to mess with it Alex, if you disrupt Nexus One you could possibly destabilize the entire pipe network."

"So what are you doing here?"

"Messing with Nexus One."

Upon hearing this I didn't even say anything, I just looked over at Ludwig with one of those expressions as if to say 'I'm about to slap the shit out of you'.

"Yeah yeah I know what just I said, but there's a small problem with the weapon on that crystal. I've gone over it in my head a thousand times already and I've come to the same conclusion every time. In order to power a device of that magnitude you'd need the energy equivalent of roughly ten supernovas to achieve threshold, in short Nexus one is the only thing even remotely capable of reaching that."

"You don't know?"

"No I don't know, I told you I haven't been able to determine Nexus One's energy output."

The entire time we had been standing there talking I had been watching the flares that Nexus One discharged and while the timing appeared random I noticed several flares occurring in the same place and moving in the same direction so I asked Ludwig about it.

"People, where do you think someone goes when they enter a pipe? They come here to Nexus one and get routed to their destination. The other thing I've noticed is that Mushroom World isn't the only one making regular use of the network. As you know the entire Mushroom World pipe network was mapped out a long time ago and since then I've been able to establish which discharge each pipe is associated with. On that note I've seen a number of regular discharges occur that aren't connected to Mushroom World."

"If you're still studying it then how is it you have a pipe room in the castle, how were those connections made?"

"They were made through the use of Koopa Magic which I estimate somehow or another interpreted the desire of the caster and filled in the blanks form there but personally I've been trying to discover the science behind it rather than relying on magic to do the work for me."

"Speaking of which, isn't having a pipe room dangerous? I mean what's to stop someone from using it to get into the castle?"

"Simple they're one way pipes, the exit closes behind you and to ensure that no one maps the exit points and is waiting for us on the other end, the exit pipe appears at random locations within a defined area."

"How long until the weapon is ready?"

"Well despite the radical nature of its capabilities the weapon itself is actually rather simple in design, we're already applying the outer cover it should be ready soon."

"What'll happen once it fires?"

"Honestly… I don't know, there are just too many variables and too little data. Nexus One could be generating so much energy that nothing happens, it could destabilize the pipe network, or…" he trailed off.

"It could destroy Nexus One."

"It's a distinct possibility yes. We also have to face facts here Alex, with the Stinit invasion and their cloning technology there's no way we can defeat them through traditional military tactics, it's turned into a war of attrition, a war that we're losing and we're the only thing standing between them and the rest of Mushroom World. If we don't stop them here and now once the Dark Lands fall everyone else will be like knocking over dominos. As much as I don't want to do this I have no choice."

"Ludwig, you better get back here and fast."

Iggy's voice seemed to come from inside his shell and reaching behind him he pulled out a small device that put me to mind of a walkie-talkie.

"What's going on Iggy?"

"We've got inbound, portals are gonna start forming all around the castle, ETA two minutes."

With a growl he put the device back into his shell and rummaged around briefly before producing what looked like a small metal cylinder about the size of a pen with a red button on the top of it.

"You can tell when they're coming in now?"

"Yeah, one of the projects I was working on before you gave me that crystal was a way to disrupt their portals, managed to stumble onto a method for detecting them instead."

With that he clicked the red button on the device in his hand forming a portal like the one I had taken to get here and we quickly made our way back to the lab. When we got back I noticed all of the Koopalings had come to the lab obviously nervous about the impending invasion and eager to see if the device in question would be able to put a stop to the Stinit once and for all.

Noticing a number of the other Koopas that had been working in the lab rushing in and out of an adjoining room I made my way to the door to look inside and see what all the fuss was about and that's when I saw the weapon, to my surprise it wasn't even that big. The central piece in a room that looked like little more than an oversized storage closet the possible means to our salvation appeared to be a twelve foot tall lightning rod sitting in the middle of a domed base with a number of small metal devices evenly spaced over the central structure that just looked like giant doughnuts in my opinion. Each of these doughnuts seemed to have large thick wires coming out of both the top and bottom leading to the one both above and below it. On the top of the device was a metal sphere with leads feeding into it from the topmost doughnut ring and I could see the Koopa Turtles rushing to trying and put the last pieces into place.

"Come on Iggy; let's get this show on the road." Ludwig said.

I felt Wendy press up against my back and I turned to face her and seeing the look on her face I put my arms around her.

"Don't worry babe, everything's going to be alright, Ludwig has everything under control."

"That's not what's bothering me Alex, when this is all over there's something I need to tell you."

"What?"

"Not now, when this is over, you need to focus right now."

Focus on what though because from what I could see there wasn't much for me to do at the moment. Once all the Koopa Turtles had cleared the room with the device and given Ludwig the go ahead he and Iggy began working furiously at the controls watching the monitor as a number of the turtles seemed to rush to various stations to help with the device.

"Nexus shunt online and operating at fifty thousand terawatts per second." One of the turtle engineers said.

"Fifty-thousand… good god, New York City only uses eleven-thousand megawatts a day." I mumbled, looking back to the device.

At first even with this unbelievable amount of energy being pumped into the device I didn't see anything happening, then slowly I began to hear something that sounded like a cross between a hum and a stropping sound as the metallic base of the device began to glow a faint blue.

"Eighty… ninety… shunt now operating at one-hundred thousand terawatts per second, initiating stage one power sequence."

As I watched I could see the energy begin to crackle through the wires to the first doughnut ring and I began to get rather nervous when I saw the plastic coating that was protecting the wires start to melt.

"Uh Ludwig, the wire coating is melting!" I called.

"They'll hold!"

"Portal formation in T-minus thirty seconds." Another turtle said.

"Where's Bowser?" I asked Wendy.

"He's out front with what's left of the troops in case this plan fails."

"How many troops are left?"

"Two hundred I think."

"Two hundred?! He can't stop a Stinit invasion with just two hundred soldiers!"

"I know, but he said if Castle Koopa falls he's going to take as many of them with him as he can."

Dear lord now my boss, Wendy's father, was standing out front ready to fight a suicidal battle if we failed here, I knew now more than ever the fate of the Dark Lands hinged on the device sitting in the room next to us. I continued to watch as the power flowed from doughnut to doughnut, each giving off a small whine almost like a generator powering up, then the last right below the sphere flare to life.

"Incoming portals forming at a three-hundred and sixty degree vector."

"Ludwig! It's now or never!" I yelled.

"FIRE!"

What I saw next was something I think I'll remember for the rest of my life. When the device fired it was consumed in a pillar of light so bright I had to shield my eyes as I heard it smash through the roof of the palace and risking a look back the brilliant blue-white light had pierced the persistent cloud cover of the Dark Land. Not only had it pierced the clouds above us but massive tentacles of energy were surging through the upper ionosphere of the planet as the beam disappeared into space. As I watched I could see green lights on the main monitor begin to turn red.

"Sensors indicate wide scale portal destabilization, total failure in ten seconds." One turtle said.

It was working, the device was sealing the Stinit into their own dimension! I was about to grab Wendy and start celebrating when I heard an alarm sound followed by a flashing red light… that couldn't be good.

"The device is exceeding threshold, I can't turn it off!" Iggy yelled.

"Reroute the power, reroute the power!" Ludwig yelled in response.

"I can't, the controls aren't responding, they weren't designed to handle this much power!"

"If we don't shut this thing down Nexus One will overflow into the Mushroom World, it'll destroy the planet!"

As I listened to them yelling back and forth I was about to go into a panic myself, destroy the planet?! The planet couldn't be destroyed now, we had just saved it, what about Wendy, the Dark Lands-

"Wendy look out!"

Without any thought for my own safety I threw Wendy to the ground some distance away from me as I saw a surge of energy coming us and as it struck me in the back everything began to turn a brilliant white.

The End…?


End file.
